


This Whole I'm Not Worthy of Love Bullshit

by MZS



Series: This Whole I'm Not Worthy Of Love Bullshit [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Divergent Season 10 Rewrite, Canon-Typical Behavior, Established Relationship, Homophobic Language, Jealous Ian Gallagher, M/M, Prison Sex, Stubborn Mickey Milkovich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25809262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MZS/pseuds/MZS
Summary: “Mickey! Please. Fuck,” Ian stammers out, tears welling up and beginning to sting his eyes. “I’m—I’m desperate.”“Yeah? Well, fuck you, I’m not.”
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Mickey Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: This Whole I'm Not Worthy Of Love Bullshit [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017708
Comments: 132
Kudos: 340





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-divergent take on season 10 in which Ian’s gotta work quite a bit harder to win back Mickey.

“Rise and shine, Porcupine,” Ian intones in that sing-songy way that never fails to make Mickey’s eyes roll right into the back of his head.

Mickey grunts, “how in the world are you always so damn chipper first thing in the morning?” He wipes a hand over his eyes, blinking back the leaden veil of sleep, trying to work some moisture into his parched morning mouth.

“Easy to be,” Ian says from the top bunk before leaping down in socked feet. “I’ve got my morning rounds in Medical with only two patients, so ya know, easy. Then, like an hour in the library, which is awesome ’cause I’m pretty sure they got in the new sci-fi and fantasy shit I requested. And, if that wasn’t enough, it’s Jell-O Tuesday, man.”

Mickey eyes Ian from his crappy bedroll mattress, shaking his head a little in disbelief. Only Ian Gallagher could extoll the virtues of prison life with such glee. Mickey sits up, spine cracking as he straightens his back and begins pulling on his jumpsuit.

“You can have my Jell-O if it makes you this keyed up on life, man” he snorts. Though he’ll never admit it, Ian’s ray-of-sunshine bullshit is exactly what he needs to face the excruciatingly early mornings and predictably monotonous days at Beckman Correctional.

Oh, it’s not that Mickey is at a shortage of things to do. In fact, he’s got a very full morning and afternoon, with lots of important plans lined up. Many of which Ian knows nothing about. Still, getting the motivation going at 7am, especially with Ian’s brand of wide-eyed optimism, is next to impossible for someone like Mickey.

Ian is just finishing up at their shared sink, drying his hands on the tattered washcloth when he steps aside to let Mickey pass. Mickey’s toothbrush, already topped with toothpaste, rests on the sink.

Ian’s even planted Mickey’s sneakers on the floor beside his bunk so he can slip into them without having to walk the dirty floor in bare feet, and it makes Mickey smile.

Yeah, he doesn’t just wake up every morning to the sunny disposition of any old deranged cellmate. Mickey’s prison-married to the love of his dumb, fucked-up life and every second he spends with Ian is pretty awesome. As much as he hates to admit it, Mickey hasn’t felt this happy in years.

Even while on the lam in Mexico, lazing on white-sand beaches or throwing back tequila shots on his rare days off from collections for the Sinaloa cartel can’t compare to the stupid shit he enjoys here — like just watching Ian peacefully sleep after a particularly grueling workout in the yard. Or, listening to the low rumble of Ian’s voice as he reads the _Harry Potter_ series aloud to him from the top bunk, full of goofy inflections and lispy “esses” whenever Harry speaks parseltongue. Sometimes, Ian wakes up in the middle of the night, all clingy and jittery from a panicked nightmare, and even that’s bliss, ’cause it means he’ll snuggle up to Mickey, resting the full weight of his limbs on Mickey’s body, swallowing up most of the bottom bunk in the process.

It’s been eight months since Mickey surprised Ian, somehow magically popping up in the ginger’s six-by-eight-foot prison cell, ready to trade life as a fugitive in Mexico for yet another stint in the joint.

Blowing up a god damn minivan. It still makes the vein in Mickey’s temple throb whenever he thinks of the mess his boyfriend’s so-called nearest and _dearest_ let him make of his life. Could Mickey have done any better had he been around at the time? Maybe not, but fuck anyone who thought he’d let Ian fend for himself now, all alone at Beckman.

With the face of a cherub and the body of an underwear model, Ian’s a bona fide pretty-boy who, let’s face it, would need protection on the inside and not just the kind an intimidating Milkovich could provide — no matter how high that Milkovich holds his head up, puffs out his chest or delivers verbal ass-rippings as easily as breathes.

Ian is strong and a capable fighter and has learned it mainly on the streets to his credit, but too many years of drinking faggacinos and saving babies as an EMT or whatever fragile-hearted shit he did on the regular left him soft. Way too soft for prison. On his own at Beckman, he was either gonna become someone’s bitch, get shanked or worse.

As soon as he flipped and turned state’s evidence against the cartel, Mickey knew he’d made enemies of some seriously dangerous hombres who were now out for blood. But that didn’t mean he was stupid, or that he’d left himself and Ian entirely vulnerable to a revenge attack on the inside. Quite the opposite, actually.

Mickey Milkovich may seem reckless given his track record. But, the truth is that when he has a chance to think things through, to really take stock of his situation, the options he’s got and what he stands to lose, he’s a planner. Mickey walked into Beckman with a plan and he sure as shit had one for the day he was gonna walk out of there, _hopefully_ with Ian by his side.

“Breakfast, fellas,” the CO’s voice breaks through his reverie as the heavy steel door slides open, beckoning the cellmates out and into the common area.

“Want me to wait for you?” Ian asks Mickey, who’s still splashing water on his face.

“Nah, save me a seat. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

“Corn muffins, today, gentlemen,” the CO bellows, an announcement that garners an irritated grumble from every prisoner within earshot. Every prisoner, except for Ian, who of course, glances back at Mickey with a dumb grin and a raised eyebrow that simply says, _yum!_

 _What a tool,_ Mickey thinks while drying off his hands, another smile spreading across his face. If all goes according to plan, he and _said tool_ are gonna go from prison-married to real-life, legally ball-and-chain married in a matter of days. He just hopes the surprise nuptials he’s been lowkey planning for Ian won’t somehow blow up in his face.

But, well. Mickey oughta know by now that when your plans involve lifelong happiness with a Gallagher, anything is liable to happen.

With that unsettling thought, Mickey reaches under the sink to the cold-water valve and pockets the small roll of cash he’s been squirrelling away there. He then joins the breakfast herd before the CO begins yelling at the dumbfuck stragglers taking too long to exit their cells.

___

After breakfast, Ian and Mickey are back in their cell. Ian’s inexplicably straightening up — you’d think they were having guests over later or some shit — cringing up at the clock just outside the steel door.

“I have to get my meds and make it to the commissary before they run out of the good shampoo, Mickey.”

“Yeah, so?”

“ _Sooo_ … maybe _you_ could clean up a little, so I can get to both places in the next 15 minutes?”

Sitting on the bottom bunk, Mickey rubs a tired eye with one hand while lifting a roll of toilet paper with the other. He straightens it atop a stack of several other rolls so that it’s no longer a leaning tower of off-brand Charmin but rather, an upright one.

Ian sighs.

“Look, skip the commissary,” Mickey says. “I already got you the better stuff. The fancy shampoo and fruity body wash you like.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, but do us both a favor and pour ’em into unlabeled bottles. I don’t need you inspiring a jealous homo uprising over some Paul Mitchell Extra Body.”

Ian hums as if struck by a deep thought, then goes silent. He stops fussing with the books and pillows and remains stock-still, eyes fixed on Mickey.

Mickey looks up at him and instantly recognizes “the face.” The one where Ian’s puppy-dog eyes widen and go all glassy, his nostrils flare and his bottom lip pulls down into a quivering half-smile, half-frown.

“Oh god,” Mickey readies himself. 

“Mickey… I just…”

And, so it begins. In an instant, Ian is sitting beside Mickey on the bottom bunk, sweeping his boyfriend’s hands up into his own. He bites his lower lip as if searching for the words, which, if Mickey’s being honest, have become so predictable by now, he could probably recite them by heart.

“You can’t even begin to appreciate how much this means to me, Mick.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know. You can’t know,” Ian carries on despite the brunette’s audible sigh.

“Like, just having you here has been amazing. But, every time I think you’ve done everything a person could do for another person, every time you show such care for me…”

“…you follow it up with…” Mickey speaks over Ian so that their words come out in unison. 

“I truly don’t know how I…” Ian supplies.

“…got so lucky,” Mickey finishes.

“Could you shut the fuck up and let me dote on you for a minute? _Jesus._ This is some thoughtful fucking shit you’ve done here.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mickey says averting his eyes, pretending a loose thread on the leg of his jumpsuit is worlds more fascinating than this conversation.

But, Ian gets it. He gets the message. He wraps a hand around the scruff of Mickey’s neck to draw him in. “Thank you, okay? Thank you for all of it. For being who you are. I mean it.”

Not wanting to prolong Mickey’s agony any further, Ian pecks him hard on the lips, then stands up and heads out the door. Before leaving, he turns back to say, “If there’s anything I can do…”

“…to reciprocate,” they say in unison again, “please, Mickey, don’t hesi…”

“…tate to let me know…” After their near-perfect synchronous recital, Mickey flashes Ian his best shit-eating grin.

“On second thought, go fuck yourself.” And with that, Ian’s gone, off to take his morning meds and start his workday in Medical.

It’s not that Mickey doesn’t enjoy hearing this kind of sentimental crap from Ian. In fact, he kind of loves it — and _needs_ it if he’s being honest with himself. He needs to be reminded that sacrificing his freedom for Ian _hasn’t_ been his biggest, most underappreciated act of stupidity.

Mickey doesn’t just have connections at the commissary. Top-shelf toiletries, king-size, not fun-size Snickers, there _is_ a difference, unlimited smokes — yeah, these are all great. But, bigger, more influential strings have also been pulled to make life more tolerable at Beckman for Ian.

First-dibs book selections at the library, a cush job in the infirmary. There was even that time Mickey scored Ian access to an iPhone for five minutes to FaceTime Lip and see his brother’s newborn baby.

Of course, all these perks are nothing compared to the protection Mickey’s able to wrangle for Ian on the inside. No having to watch his ass in the showers, _quite literally,_ against unwelcome intrusions, no worrying that some punk’s gonna to step to him in the mess hall or accidentally drop a barbell on his pretty face in the yard.

Mickey’s not exactly untouchable at Beckman, no. But, enough inmates are affiliated, even tangentially, to the same sphere of protection as Mickey and they know not to fuck with him, and by extension, not to fuck with Ian.

The privileges, also the product of said affiliation, are a bonus, which Ian knows very little about. He doesn’t ask questions, assuming it’s just your standard Milkovich magic at work — the same kind of magic that, against all odds, reunited them here at Beckman in the first place.

Mickey prefers Ian in a continual state of ignorant bliss, choosing instead to keep him occupied, comfortable and grounded. As much as anyone could be in a medium-security federal prison. On his meds, safe, secure. Not drifting. Not manic.

Happily ignorant to the inner workings of Mexican drug cartels and their known associates, presumed enemies. People who could be persuaded to help the two of them when needed, people who could hurt them _badly_ if they weren’t careful — Mickey figures the less Ian knows, the better off the goofy ginger fuck will be. 

He gets up from the bunk and heads out in the opposite direction from Ian, toward the library. It’s GED testing day, after all. 

He’s got a few minutes, so on his way, he passes the prison chapel and stops in to speak to the chaplain, a salty gray-haired codger named Pastor Furman.

“Greetings, your holiness.”

A man in his late sixties wearing a drab pulpit gown turns at the sound of Mickey’s voice, all levity visibly draining from his features. “Good morning, Inmate Milkovich.”

“How they hanging, Padré?” Not giving the pastor a chance to stutter out an awkward response, Mickey follows up with, “you got everything ready? Everything for me and Gallagher on Sunday.”

The older man smooths both hands down the front of his robe, saying nothing, but hoping the lull in the conversation clues Mickey in on obvious next steps.

“Ah,” says Mickey, reaching into his pocket to peel off four twenties from the roll of cash he’s still carrying.

“There’s also the matter of a filing fee, Inmate Milkovich. Marriage licenses don’t simply walk themselves over to marriage bureaus on their own two little feet.”

Mickey snorts and peels off another twenty.

“Look, I’m gonna have a coupla guys stoppin’ by here later in the week. Put up some streamers and shit. Paper wedding bells, ya know. Make the place all nuptial-like.”

“That’s fine.”

Mickey sweeps a tattooed hand in a casual wave around the room. “Oh, and uh, they’ll be throwing rice at us on day of. That okay?”

“Certainly, certainly. Although… I can’t say I’ll be looking forward to the cleanup afterward. You must understand, for someone of my advanced years...”

“We’ll take all the shit down after we’re done.”

The Pastor carries on a bit about the debris and how it could litter everything in its path and that he may even need to pay a Beckman staff janitor overtime to help out.

“Don’t be a mooch, Padré,” Mickey says through a sneer. “You’re marrying a couple of fags on Sunday, not parting the Red Sea.”

Despite the obvious attempt at a shakedown, Mickey lets him keep the hundred bucks, plus a little extra for what the pastor probably thinks is hazard pay, but Mickey’s only willing to acknowledge as a 10% fucking tip.

___

Mickey’s just finishing up the last section of the GED exam, when the timer on the librarian’s desk goes off.

“Pencils down,” she says, smiling shyly at Mickey before collecting the booklet in front of him as well as from the handful of other prisoners who signed up to take the test.

“I’m sure you did great, Mickey,” she says and places a hand on his shoulder.

He glances at the hand, then up at the librarian’s flushed face. “Thanks, Janet.”

Perfect timing. The COs are starting to wrangle the inmates for lunch.

Mickey hurries out of the library, slotting his sharpened pencil back into the locked box Janet keeps on her desk for inmate studies and exams.

He can’t help but marvel a little at the bizarre ability he still has to attract women, even in jail — fuck, _especially_ in jail — without even trying. Must be something about an aloof man in uniform.

The last time Mickey had a female eating out of the palm of his hand, it was two years ago when he escaped from Cook County Correctional.

He thinks Janet would probably make every bit as good a patsy as the lovelorn guard he’d seduced back then, but oh well. A prison break isn’t part of Mickey’s plans this time around. _Sorry, Janet._

___

Mickey meets Ian at their usual spot at a lunch table by the windows, where the redhead’s already seated, reading over the pages of an official-looking document.

“Wuss that?” asks Mickey, setting down his tray and immediately plopping his cup of cherry-flavored Jell-O onto Ian’s.

Ian lets out a shaky breath. “I’ve got a parole hearing this Friday.”

“Ay! That’s great, man. Good for you.”

“Is it? Is it really good for me?”

Mickey’s genuinely confused by the reaction. “A golden ticket outa this shithole, only eight months into a two-year sentence? I’d fucking say so.”

Ian’s face falls as he stuffs the papers back into the envelope and shoves it across the table.

“What?”

“I wanna be where you are, Mickey. I’m just supposed to walk outta here, on my own while my boyfriend rots in prison without me? Nuh-uh. This is bullshit. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ian crosses his arms defiantly over his chest. Always so dramatic.

“Ian…”

“No, seriously, Mickey. We’re better off in here. Both of us. Together.”

Mickey stabs the meat on his platter with a plastic spork, cringing at the squelch it produces in return.

“Are you fucking high right now, Gallagher? How could us possibly staying in prison be better than one of us getting out? One of us — in this case, _you_ — starts a life on the outside, gets the whole ‘white picket fence’ shit going, so that by the time the other — in this case _me_ — gets out, he’s got something stable to come home to.”

Duh. It’s so obvious, but for some reason Ian furrows his brow.

“How am I supposed to do any of that? I’m a bipolar convicted felon with a revoked EMT license. I can’t leave the state. We can’t adopt a kid. No one’s ever gonna approve a bank loan for us, so forget about ever buying a house together.”

Mickey sighs, his lunch growing less appetizing by the second, if that was even possible.

“Nope. I’ve decided. I’m staying and that’s final. I’m gonna tank my parole hearing.”

“No, you the fuck are not.”

“I’ve got stability here. I’ve got you. I’ve got a job I like…”

“A job? You record vitals for a bunch of degenerates in sick bay, half of ’em lifers with dementia, the other half gangbangers with more holes poked in ’em than a fucking a pasta strainer.”

“Like I was saying,” Ian huffs slightly at the interruption, “in here, I’ve got three meals a day, a roof over my head, my fucking boyfriend who I get to bone _any_ time I want. I wake up at the same time every day. I go to sleep at the same time every night. It’s _regimented._ It _works_ for me.”

Ian makes a gesture with his hand toward the window.

“On the outside, I’ve got nothing.”

Mickey kind of stopped listening after the part about boyfriends and boning.

“ _Any_ time you want, ay? Who says?”

“Mickey…”

He waggles an eyebrow at Ian, then takes a bite out of the only thing on his tray that resembles food — a slice of soggy white bread he’s covered in ranch dressing.

“That’s disgusting.”

“I know,” Mickey mumbles, then takes another bite. “Look, you don’t have _nothing_ on the outside. Ridiculous you’d even think that way. You’ll get a job. You’ll be an uncle to Lip and Debbie’s kids. Just cool your tits and quit being so fucking dramatic.”

“Yeah, whatever, you love my tits,” Ian grumbles back, clearly only fixated on words of sexual innuendo, just like his boyfriend.

God, they were both so horny. Like _all_ -the-fucking-time horny.

Mickey kicks lightly at Ian’s foot under the table and lowers his voice.

“You get us lube when you were in Medical?”

“Few packets,” Ian sighs.

“ _Lube_ this time, correct? Not Hellman’s fucking mayonnaise?”

Mickey takes another bite of bread and washes it down with a cup of ice water.

“So, what you’re saying is spicy mustard is out of the question? ’Cause I was thinking ‘condiments-as-sexual-aides’ is kind of our thing.”

Ian’s already snarfed down his own Jell-O and is about to peel back the foil lid on the one gifted to him by Mickey.

“You sure you don’t want this?” he asks, gesturing to the wiggly red goop.

“Nah,” Mickey flashes Ian a wry smile. “Still have to pick up your shampoo and shit. Should be a coupla snacks in that order for me, too.”

“No snacks for me?”

Mickey makes a face, then sweeps a hand in front of his chest, as if to suggest, _this ain’t snack enough right here?_

“Yeah, I got you some shit,” he finally relents after letting Ian sweat it out for a second or two.

“Like what?”

“KIND bars.”

At that, Ian lightly and very discreetly brushes the tip of his index finger over Mickey’s thumbnail.

“Imma fuckin’ wreck you tonight,” he mouths, all mock-serious, but _fuck_ if it isn’t the hottest thing he could possibly be saying to Mickey in that moment.

___

The rest of the day goes by pretty much like any other. Mickey puts in a few hours at his work detail, fluffing and folding sheets in the laundry, takes a couple of cigarette breaks in the yard, has dinner, showers, then pays a visit to the two Carloses — Juarez and Sanchez.

Beckman’s only married inmates, they’d met and gotten hitched years ago on the outside, before getting locked up together for armed robbery and seemed to think it was romantic as all fuck.

They show Mickey the bundles of rice they’ve assembled from scraps of cellophane and twist ties they stole from the kitchen and the poster board they’ve decorated with wedding magazine cutouts, each one silhouetted in glitter glue.

“Ian + Mickey” is scrawled across the top in red sharpie with a heart dotting the “i” in Mickey. Given the lack of supplies and options, the Carloses explain that plain toilet paper and upside-down Solo cups will have to stand in for the streamers and wedding bells Mickey wanted.

 _Not too shabby_ , he thinks, as far as white-trash weddings go. Mickey hands them each a twenty, then makes his way to the medical waste bins at the far end of the cellblock.

Inmates aren’t generally allowed here, which is why it pays to learn the guards’ patrol routes and schedules before venturing this way. The bins are drop-off points for smuggled-in shit from the outside.

Ian’s a priss with a hard-on for premium grooming products, but you’d be much likelier to find porno mags, tattoo ink, needles and burner phones here among the heap. Weapons, hard drugs and booze were a racket of a different sort, and one Mickey preferred not to fuck with.

Making sure no guards are around and avoiding the roaming lens of the surveillance camera, Mickey lifts a grocery bag out from one of the bins, followed by a specimen cup sealed closed with a biohazard sticker. He unscrews the cup, rolls up and shoves his two remaining twenties inside, then seals it up before tossing it back in the bin. The lid shuts with a soft clap. 

___

“Took you long enough. Where ya been?” Ian asks once Mickey enters their cell for the night carrying the shopping bag, which looks like it may contain, among other things, a bottle of blue Powerade.

_Yesss!_

“Simmer down, Princess. You know where I been,” he says nodding to the bag.

Mickey sets it down beside what he can only assume is Ian’s attempt at creating a coffee table out of two overturned milk crates, topped with (wait, _seriously?!_ ) Mickey’s fucking pillow case.

“The fuck’s this?”

Ian shrugs before reaching to the sink to grab two Solo cups filled with amber liquid and placing them on the makeshift table.

“I dunno. Thought we could have like a proper date night.”

“That prison hooch?” Mickey asks, nodding to the cups.

“Mhhmm.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“The Carloses.”

Mickey pinches the bridge of his nose and for a moment, squeezes his eyes shut. _God dammit._ Did these fuckheads manage to hide the wedding shit from Ian or was this whole sad-sack attempt at a surprise wedding now completely blown?

Glancing over at Ian and judging by the nonplussed look on his face, Mickey seems satisfied that the goofy ginger fuck was none the wiser.

“So, we doing like Netflix and chill, here? Only… no Netflix and no chill?”

“Summin’ like that,” Ian murmurs, placing a hand on Mickey’s cheek and nuzzling his neck, just above the collar of his jumpsuit.

He lets himself indulge in the attention for a bit, then pulls back from Ian’s embrace.

“Look, we gotta talk about your parole hearing.”

“What’s to talk about?” Ian purrs, drawing Mickey back in by the hips. “Done deal as far as I’m concerned. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He continues pressing soft kisses up the side of Mickey’s neck, then drags the tip of his tongue along the shell of Mickey’s ear. He feels his boyfriend shiver from the soft, filthy-wet sensations.

Taking a deep breath, Mickey once again tries putting some distance between himself and Ian, who by now is semi-erect and pitching a tent in his jumpsuit.

“Ian…”

“Mickey, we’ve been over this. Besides, I really don’t feel like talking.”

“Well, too bad,” Mickey says firmly, but without much heat in is his voice.

Rolling his eyes with a dramatic flutter of the lids, Ian relents and takes a seat on the toilet.

Mickey steels himself, choosing his next words carefully — in his experience, Ian has a tendency to fly off the handle during serious talks if he doesn’t.

“Look, I don’t ask you for much, do I?” He waits for Ian to nod in the affirmative before continuing.

“Well, I’m asking you to do _this._ For me.”

“No.”

“No? Why the fuck not?”

“Because,” Ian starts, then takes a deep breath. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t leave you in here. I can’t just walk away from you again.”

“I—I fucked up so many times with you, Mickey,” he stammers, then clears his throat like he’s trying to suppress the emotion rising in his voice. “I’ve always put myself first, then treated you like some meaningless speed bump on my way to a better, more stable life. I’m not doing that again. I’m just not.”

Mickey actually winces at that one. He’s forgiven Ian for most of the bullshit he’s put him through over the years, but he can’t exactly say he’s forgotten or even emotionally recovered from all of it.

Knowing he should probably play nice, a still-unnatural instinct for him, Mickey takes a cautious step closer to Ian. “But that’s not what this is, okay? You don’t belong in here. You never did.”

Mickey cups a hand over Ian’s ear, using his thumb to gently stroke the smooth ginger hairs along his sideburn.

“You keep asking me if there’s anything you can do to ‘reciprocate,’ right?” he says, rolling his eyes at the formality of Ian’s earlier schpiel. “Well, do this for me, okay? We’ll call it your ultimate act of… _reciprocity._ ”

Ian scrunches up his face. “The fuck you know that word?”

Mickey shrugs, though is pretty sure he picked it up while studying for the GED.

“Please, Ian?”

Ian shakes his head, but Mickey can sense his boyfriend beginning to relent.

“You have years left on your sentence.”

“We thought you did, too, right? But, look at shit now. You’re probably not even gonna serve half of your time.”

Ian lets out a huffy breath and wraps a hand around Mickey’s wrist, turning it slightly to kiss the inside of his palm.

“Okay, fine. I won’t fuck up the hearing on purpose. But, if I don’t get paroled, I don’t get paroled.” 

Mickey smiles.

“Fuckin’ better not get paroled,” he garbles under his breath, so quietly Mickey barely hears him.

“Wuss that, Mumbles?”

“Nothing, c’mere.”

All of a sudden, Ian’s tearing open the bottom few snaps of Mickey’s jumpsuit, pushing up the hem of the tank top beneath and flattening his tongue, soft and wet, against Mickey’s belly button.

Mickey recoils from the sudden tickling sensation and heat.

“Oh, you’re a fucking dead man, Gallagher. You know better than to fuck with my sensitive areas.”

“What sensitive areas? I didn’t know you had any,” Ian smirks, running his fingertips along the separation between Mickey’s ass cheeks.

The overhead begins winking on and off — a warning to all inmates that about 10 minutes remain before lights out.

Ian places his hands on Mickey’s hips and pulls himself up, leveraging the other’s man’s position to hoist himself off the toilet and onto his feet.

He drops a wet kiss on Mickey’s mouth, then draws back to take a cup for himself and hand the other to Mickey.

“Ugh, this shit’s disgusting,” Mickey says peering inside and sniffing what he can only presume is piss-warm fermented apple juice.

“Not any worse than ranch dressing sandwiches,” Ian counters, referring to Mickey’s lunch from earlier.

They clink Solo cups and gulp the nasty shit down, groaning and gagging a bit before swallowing.

Afterward, they’re taking turns at the sink, washing up, brushing teeth and flossing before the overhead light winks out for good.

Now shrouded in darkness, Mickey goes for it, crashing his lips hard against Ian’s.

“Take this shit off,” he growls, tugging at Ian’s jumpsuit.

Ian eagerly strips down as does Mickey, both men left standing in wife beaters and boxer shorts.

Ian pushes Mickey forcefully against the wall, grinding his now rock-hard erection against the other man’s hip.

“How do you want it, Milkovich?”

Mickey sucks in a shallow breath. “What are my options, Gallagher?”

“Well, let’s see,” Ian presses a knee between Mickey’s thighs, pries them apart roughly. He leans the full weight of his body against Mickey’s, pinning him against the wall.

“I can give it to you fast and dirty right here,” he says, whispering into his boyfriend’s ear. “Or…”

“Or…?”

“Nah, you know what? Fuck it. You get no options. I get to do what I want with this ass right here.” He reaches a hand into Mickey’s boxers, palms the plump flesh, gives it a sharp squeeze.

It’s 9:30 and they have about 15 minutes before the night watchman does his first sets of checks, which is fine, Ian thinks, considering he’s so fucking worked up, he doesn’t expect to last much longer than that anyway. A lazier, slower affair will just have to wait until round two.

Ian’s hands roam everywhere, as he leans down to lay a filthy kiss on Mickey’s mouth; his tongue swirls lazily in circles, his teeth tug gently on Mickey’s lower lip.

Suddenly, Ian’s on his knees. He strips Mickey of his underwear, pausing for a second to admire his boyfriend’s cock in all its partially chubbed glory before swallowing him down to the root. He licks along the shaft, sucks eagerly at the head, flicks his tongue gently up and down the slit.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Mickey lets out a sharp hiss when Ian dives lower to mouth the sensitive skin of his balls and taint. “Get on me.”

Ian doesn’t have to be told twice. In an instant, he’s back up on his feet, tearing off his own boxers in one quick motion while reaching for a packet of lube on the upper bunk.

He spins Mickey around roughly by the hips. “Ready?”

Not waiting for an answer, Ian slowly slides his slicked-up cock into Mickey, wincing a little at the resistance. Gradually, he sinks past the ring of firm muscle until he’s buried inside, rocking forward, feeling all kinds of wonderful from the tightness and the heat.

Mickey inhales sharply, his pain-pleasure sensors teetering on overload, as one of Ian’s hands reaches around to firmly grip and stroke his leaking dick.

Pretty soon, Ian’s steady thrusts give way to intense pounding and there’s nothing but the sound of slapping skin in the darkness, until Ian breaks the silence with a whisper in Mickey’s ear.

“So good, Mick. Always so good.” 

Knees trembling and gasping for air, Mickey comes first. He wants to slump forward, catch his breath, but Ian’s holding him impossibly close like he can’t get enough skin-to-skin contact.

Ian’s riding through his own orgasm seconds later, softly moaning, rocking in place. He’s got both arms locked around Mickey’s chest now, trapping his limbs by his sides in a tight grip.

Mickey’s sweaty and his heart’s racing and what he really wants more than anything right now is to gulp down half a bottle of Powerade and go to sleep, but he lets himself be hugged.

Maybe Ian’s feeling extra-warm and affectionate from the prison hooch or maybe he’s genuinely nervous about an impending separation from Mickey. Whatever the case, Mickey doesn’t fight it. He just stands there, feeling Ian’s strangled breathing come out in warm puffs on the back of his neck.

Soon, footsteps outside the cell announce the night watchman’s approach.

The two men pull apart, shuffle back into their boxers and settle onto their respective bunks, seconds before the beam of a flashlight shines through the small window in the cell’s door.

Once he’s sure the guard’s finished his inspection and has moved further down the hall, Ian calls out to Mickey from the top bunk.

“Hey,” Ian whispers.

“Hmm…?”

He hesitates briefly before continuing, “You really sure you want me to make parole?”

“Yes, Ian. I am.”

“But, you’ll be alone. Like, all by yourself here.”

Mickey thinks about that. He thinks back to his first couple of stints in juvie, back to when he was just a kid. Still closeted, still so terrified of his fuckhead dad, he willingly chose jail _twice_ over copping to the awful truth, that vagina didn’t do it for him nearly as much as cock.

He thinks about Cook County Correctional and the misspelled _Ian Galager_ tattoo he’d painfully scratched into his chest. He thinks about Ian, seated behind glass in the visitor’s room, only there because Svetlana paid him to be, the look on Ian’s face when he left Mickey, brokenhearted and all alone, at the Mexican border.

He thinks about all these things and a breath catches in his throat.

“I’ll be fine,” is what Mickey says to Ian in the darkness of their six-by-eight-foot cell. But what he’s actually thinking is, _when has that ever bothered you before?_


	2. Chapter 2

Ian’s parole hearing goes okay, he thinks, but he’ll know for sure in a couple of days.

In the meantime, knowing these might be the last chances they’ll get, Mickey and Ian sneak away to have sex in the some of the more offbeat recesses of Beckman Correctional. They go at it in the shower, which isn’t exactly new territory, but over the next two days, they also do it in the kitchen pantry, a supply closet, the boiler room, even on Janet’s desk in the library — an obscenely hot choice, as one might expect, for naughty teacher-student roleplay.

They also make jailhouse tamales that actually don’t come out half bad, using Doritos, hot water and tabasco sauce, work out, read, play Yahtzee and watch _Back to the Future_ on movie night.

By the time Sunday rolls around, Mickey’s got butterflies in his stomach the size of fruit bats. At breakfast, he’s too anxious to choke down much besides a cup of orange juice. Later, in the yard, he doesn’t trust himself to lift weights, offering instead to just spot for Ian who looks at him askance from the incline bench.

“Fuck’s up with you today?” he asks.

Mickey shrugs. The wedding’s in less than two hours and although there’s nothing left for him to do but show up to the chapel with Ian, he’s still jittery as hell.

After showering, they drop their used sheets off and exchange them for clean bedding at the laundry.

Ian’s about to sit down at a game table for a round of dominoes, when Mickey sidles over and aggressively latches onto his elbow, pulling him up to his feet.

“Fuck, _relax_.”

He shakes out of Mickey’s grasp, bristling slightly at the manhandling, but not so perturbed as to deny his boyfriend dick when he so clearly needs it.

“Found us a new spot. Real private. Hot fantasy shit.”

Ian realizes Mickey’s steering him into an unfamiliar wing of the cellblock. Before long, they’re standing outside a wooden door with a frosted window, stenciled lettering across the glass.

“The chapel? Seriously?” Ian’s impressed.

Screwing inside of a confessional booth might just be Mickey’s best idea yet. So much for the whole “Gay Jesus” schtick, Mickey thinks, because had Ian actually visited the prison chapel even once, he’d’ve known it had no confessional booth.

Instead, what Ian finds when he steps inside are the two Carloses, Pastor Furman, Chester — one of his patients from Medical, seated in a wheelchair, hooked up to a portable IV — and two dudes from the Aryan Brotherhood, one with tattoo sleeves and severed ear piercings, suggesting he’d lost them some time back in a vicious fight. _Shit_. The room looks like it’s been set up for an AA meeting, except above their heads are twists of toilet paper scotch-taped to the rafters. Off to the side, what appears to be a science fair poster, dusted in rainbow glitter, is propped up on an easel.

Ian takes it all in, or at least tries to because waves of nausea and the distinct feeling that the room is spinning, are creating a bit of a distraction.

“Mickey, what is this?”

“What do you mean, man? It’s our wedding.”

Seeing what he hopes is a confused and not horrified expression on his boyfriend’s face, Mickey asks everyone to give them a second so he can take Ian aside and explain.

Once out of earshot, Mickey begins. “So, look, I been thinking about it for a while now and it’s the mature thing to do. Once we’re both outta here, if you ever get sick or go off your meds again, or something happens to me, we—we’ll be each other’s healthcare proxies. And, down the line, if we ever have shit on each other, neither of us’ll have to testify against the other in court, you know, because of spousal privilege.”

Ian sees Mickey’s lips move, hears the sound of Mickey’s voice. But, beyond this, his cognitive abilities have short-circuited and all he can manage in return is a blank stare.

“Um, so,” Mickey scratches at an eyebrow with his thumb, “all the paperwork’s ready for us. We just have to sign. Oh, and you’re probably thinking, ‘can prisoners even get married in the state of Illinois,’ right?”

“Surprise,” Mickey says, making a feeble attempt at jazz hands. “We’re not prisoners anymore. I got on the early release list. Found out last week.”

Ian’s eyes go a bit wider, and it’s a tossup as to whether or not he’s still breathing.

“You’re getting paroled,” Mickey reminds him. “Well, you know, most likely you are so, I figure now’s as good a time as any to do this. Plus— _plus_ , turns out convicted felons can’t live in the same household together if one of em’s on any kinda probation. But, no restrictions if they’re married. Go figure.”

Mickey lets out an uneasy laugh as he searches Ian’s face for a spark of recognition — _some_ indication that he gets this whole thing is a romantic and thoughtful fucking gesture planned just for him. Any second now, he’s gonna snap out of this bullshit fugue and start swooning, right?

“C’mon, Gallagher,” Mickey says encouragingly, leading his boyfriend to where Pastor Furman is standing behind a wooden podium. Around him, the inmates are seated in a semicircle on folding chairs.

“Let’s go, Pontiff. We’re ready.”

The Pastor sighs irritably. Not wanting to waste any more time, he produces a form attached to a clipboard and a pen from behind the podium, then instructs both men to sign.

Mickey scribbles his name on the marriage license before handing the pen over to Ian. For his part, Ian — _Jesus Christ_ — makes a deliberately slow and painful show of accepting it with trembling fingers. Clearing his throat and nodding, Ian murmurs quiet reassurances to himself as he rolls the pen through his sweaty hand, trying to get it firmly gripped.

After what feels like an eternity of encouraging little nods from Mickey and the impatient sounds of shifting bodies and metal chair legs scraping against vinyl floorboards, Ian winces and before he can stop himself, the pen’s falling from his fingers with a deafening clatter against the podium.

Mickey slowly exhales. Without a word, he’s out the door — leaving behind a motley crew of prison folk who just witnessed his biggest humiliation at the hands of Ian Gallagher to date.

___

“Look, Mickey, you just caught me off guard. I had no idea you were gonna spring something like this on me today!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of how surprises work, Fuckhead.”

After the botched wedding, it’s beyond awkward in their cell and Mickey’s definitely not about to spend any more time sharing it with Ian, as he waits to be processed out of Beckman.

Instead, he’d made a beeline out of the chapel and straight to the warden’s office where he’d put in a request for protective isolation, claiming concerns over threats of violence so close to his release.

“Mickey, please. Can we just talk about this?”

Ian’s voice sounds like he’s placating a tantruming child, which makes it that much worse. If they weren’t surrounded by law enforcement right now, Mickey’s pretty sure he’d be punching Ian in the face and launching him down a flight of stairs.

By the time a CO shows up to escort Mickey to Solitary, he’s stuffed his toothbrush, a couple of magazines, socks and underwear into a laundry bag. He rips off the spiral-notebook doodles taped to the wall of his bunk and tosses them in the trash.

It takes Ian a few minutes to processes how exactly his life has gotten so fucked, so quickly. Mickey’s gone and it’s all his fault, and the thought of being apart from him, even for a night, makes a dull ache swell painfully in his chest.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be married to Mickey, not really. Or, even that he isn’t completely psyched about sharing a life with him on the outside — someday. Ian is scared more than anything, and as stupid as it sounds, living within the fortressed walls of Beckman, in spite of all its restrictions and dumb gangland politics, somehow feels safer than the uncertainty of the real world.

Had Mickey just given Ian a chance to talk things through, he’d have told him that between the cartel, his bipolar disorder, Mickey’s fucked-up family and their felony records, he just didn’t see a way out for them that wasn’t fraught with bullshit and turmoil. None of it explains why Ian didn’t sign the license, but realizing it was all happening _now_ , and not in the distant future, made it too real. In all likelihood, they were both leaving Beckman much sooner than expected. It was _happening_ and with barely any warning and maybe the shock of it all got to him and he panicked. Now, because of him, Mickey is hurt and angry and wallowing all alone in fucking Solitary.

Ian spends the next week and a half separated from Mickey, the pain so raw and deep, most days it feels like he’s drowning. As expected, his parole goes through and it makes it that much shittier not having Mickey there to share the news with. On the morning of his release, Ian is handed a plastic bag marked DRESS OUT CLOTHING, gate money and the balance of his commissary funds. He fills out a bunch of paperwork, then is escorted across the compound by a guard who walks him through a series of locked doors and gates. At the final access point, Ian’s head snaps up when he recognizes a familiar face amid a group of parolees waiting for the transport van.

“Mickey?”

Of fucking course they’d be assigned the same release date. Their eyes lock, both of them dumbstruck by seeing the other for the first time in over a week, wearing plain clothes, in broad daylight — just two former inmates, newly freed and casually standing together on the street. The look Mickey shoots Ian is so absolutely deadly though, the latter actually recoils a bit. Then something catches Ian’s attention from the corner of his eye and both men watch as a prisoner transport bus pulls up to the building about 20 feet away.

One by one, new inmates are hauled off the bus and guided into the reception unit for processing. Ian’s eyes widen when he sees the hunched-over form of Terry Milkovich bringing up the rear, struggling against his cuffs and leg restraints.

“That your dad?”

“Hmph,” Mickey grunts to himself, squinting against the sun to get a better look at the man’s face. It truly says something when seeing your father at central booking is so commonplace, it almost feels like a nonevent. At most, Mickey figures he’ll get a coupla months’ reprieve from Terry while the fucker works off whatever weak parole violation they’ve busted him for this time.

The elder Milkovich disappears from view into Beckman Correctional. Meanwhile, across the street, Ian’s brother Lip leans against a cherry-red sedan waiting for Ian, vape pen in hand, blowing out a plume of mist.

Mickey can’t find a shit to give as the reunited Gallaghers go about hugging it out in a sappy display of affection. Instead, he hangs back counting his gate money, hoping it’s enough for a pack of smokes and a one-way bus ticket back to Chicago.

Lip calls out to Mickey, asks him if he wants a ride.

“Nah, I’m good,” he grouses back, not looking up from the wad of bills in his hand.

“It’s 80 degrees out. You really gonna wait here instead of go straight home in an airconditioned car?”

Jesus Christ, the last thing Mickey wants to deal with right now is a Gallagher, let alone two. But fuck it. It’s at least 20 minutes ’til the prison transport shows up, then another 20 to the bus depot, followed by over an hour on a Greyhound. He just spent close to two weeks in the SHU because of that ginger prick. Should he really be inconvenienced now on account of his ass, too?

_____

Mickey settles into the backseat, feeling the beginnings of a headache bear down on him as Lip drives past stretches of farmland that gradually give way to industrial parks and tall buildings.

The brothers prattle on about little Freddie’s feeding schedule, colic, teething, breast pumps, some bullshit concerning money Fiona left all the Gallagher siblings, and a bunch of other crap Mickey tries to tune out, before Lip’s glancing back, trying to engage him in conversation.

“So, uh, getting the sense you two might be in a lover’s quarrel,” he says, making Mickey snort loudly and roll his eyes into the back of his head.

He sees Ian shoot Lip a desperate look, silently pleading with him to change the subject. “Okay, well,” Lip says obligingly after taking a long pull off his vape, “I’m guessing you heard about your dad?”

“Terry back in the joint? What else is new?”

Lip sets the vape pen down and uses his free hand to reach into the center console for his phone. “It’s actually pretty serious,” he says, navigating to an article before passing the phone over to Mickey. “Murder in the second degree, I think. It’s been in the news.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything although his interest is certainly piqued as he scans the story on Lip’s phone for keywords and gory details.

According to the article, _new evidence_ …yadda yadda… _brutal slaying_ … _wealthy Chicago businessman_ … _burglary gone wrong. Unsolved for eight years_ … aha, bingo. _The murder weapon._ Mickey zeroes in.

_Turning up at police headquarters in an unmarked envelope, an object thought to be used in the homicide tested positive for trace evidence by the Illinois State Crime Lab. Blood and skin cells were identified as those of known career criminal Terry Milkovich, once thought a person of interest in the case, but ruled out when physical evidence collected at the scene initially failed to tie him to the murder._

Well, shit. Of all the charges Mickey expected his pops to get busted for, admittedly, this hadn’t been high on his list.

Ian twists in his seat to look back and study Mickey’s features because other than an occasional snort and low grumble, he has yet to react or say a word.

“What?” Ian hazards to ask, anxiety creeping into his voice.

Ignoring him, Mickey casually hands the phone back to Lip, who by now isn’t hiding his curiosity either.

“Seriously, what?”

Mickey debates whether to divulge any more about the story than what’s already in the news. He sighs. Probably too tired to make a wiser decision, not to mention brain-fried from over a week in isolation, Mickey goes against his better judgement and begins to explain.

“Years ago, shit went sideways at a job my dad and brothers were working in the North Side,” he says, staring out the window at nothing in particular.

“Dude was supposed to be on vacation, but I guess his flight got canceled or whatever. He surprises Terry, comes at him with gun. So, Terry grabs the closest thing he can find, a—a crystal paperweight or some shit. Bashes the guy in the head with it. Caves in his skull.”

Ian winces at the gruesome visuals and sits up higher in his seat.

“By now, Terry’s hand’s cut up to shit, bleeding all over the fucking thing. So, he tells Iggy to get rid of it.”

“And he didn’t?” Lip asks.

“Nah,” Mickey shrugs. “Fucking Nancy Drew grabs a Ziploc from the dude’s kitchen. Bags the thing up, sneaks it home and gives it to me.”

“What, like a souvenir?”

“More like a gift — an ‘insurance policy,’ you could say.” Something close to a fond smile settles onto Mickey’s face at the reminiscence. “Iggy knew how rough I had it with Terry. He said if shit ever got so bad that I needed the son of a bitch gone for good someday, I should turn it into the cops.”

Mickey pauses to flex his sore shoulders and readjust before wriggling back into the seat.

“It was so long ago, I forgot I even had it ’til I was packin’ up some shit to bring with me to Mexico. Figured it was the kinda thing I shouldn’t leave behind.”

Ian sniffs at the mention of Mexico. It’s a subject rarely discussed, since it tends to overwhelm Ian with guilt over leaving Mickey at the border, then trigger an annoying shame-spiral of whining and self-pity.

“Wait, but that timeline doesn’t make sense because the murder weapon was turned in like a week ago. You guys were still prisoners then.”

“Uh, yeah,” Mickey mulls over how much more he should disclose and what the reactions might be. “I gave it to a buddy of mine. In Mexico. Just before I flipped on the cartel and turned myself in — you know, for safekeeping.”

“A buddy of yours? Really?” Ian blurts out before he can stop himself.

Mickey shakes his head slowly in disbelief. Look at this redheaded motherfucker right here getting all indignant at the mention of Mickey having a personal life. God forbid anyone should shatter the image Ian has of Mickey’s meager existence without him in Mexico, half a step up from sleeping like a vagrant on beach hammocks and eating beans straight from the can.

Before he can level Ian with a searing comeback, Mickey realizes Lip’s turning the corner onto his street. Parked outside the Milkovich house is an expensive car that looks so strikingly out of place in Chicago’s South Side, it immediately puts all three men on alert.

Panicked thoughts of a revenge attack from the cartel flood Ian’s brain and he’s gesturing for Lip to keep driving, when suddenly, the door to the Milkovich house swings open and a man in a leather jacket and dark sunglasses comes bounding down the stairs.

Mickey rolls down the window, calling out to get his attention. “Ay!”

The man looks up and smiles, at which point Mickey taps on the driver’s headrest, motioning for Lip to stop the car. “I’ll get out here. Thanks.”

Neither Lip nor Ian miss the sudden change in Mickey. A subtle but definite mellowing of his otherwise cantankerous demeanor. Ian regards this and the stranger cautiously, which hardly seems to matter, because in the next moment, Mickey’s sidling up to him on the sidewalk, pulling him into an embrace. They hug in a way that makes Ian uncomfortable to say the least. Not in a sexual way but maybe a little too familiar. Full of hard slaps and warm, encouraging squeezes of the elbow and shoulders.

“You out already?” the man asks, removing his sunglasses and motioning to the dilapidated house behind him. “Your cousin, right – Sandy? She said maybe I could still catch you. Give you a ride home, but…” he spreads his hands in acknowledgement of Lip’s car and the occupants inside. “Guess I’m too late.”

The stranger nods to them, flashing a smile that makes Ian want to curb-stomp his head and break his teeth. From the looks of him, he could be Ian Somerhalder and Ricky Martin’s sandy-haired love child, freshly torn from the pages of _GQ._

Ian steps out of Lip’s car. He’d prepared himself for several outcomes — a kidnapping, a drive-by — but this? Mickey, who recoils from nearly all forms of human contact, Mickey, who’s never so much as fist-bumped a fellow inmate in the last eight months, now bear-hugging some random asshole right here on the street? _This_ shit is an outrage.

Ian clears his throat. Completely ignoring whatever awkwardness it creates, he stands there, arms crossed, waiting for an introduction. GQ, now also glancing expectantly at Mickey, ratchets up the tension just enough so that Mickey has no choice but to relent and finally speak.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mutters, scratching his forehead in aggravation. “This is Paolo, the buddy I was telling you about. Paolo, this is…”

“Ian Gallagher, right?” he fills in, eyebrow raised and lips quirked into a cocky grin. “Nice to finally match the face to the shitty tattoo.”

And then in one quick gut-punch of a move that leaves Ian’s heart thundering in his chest, this Paolo wraps an arm around Mickey’s shoulder and with his hand, reaches down to give Mickey’s left pectoral a squeeze.

Even Mickey seems thrown by this, but before either one of them can react, Sandy comes skipping out of the Milkovich house.

“Ay! Thought I heard voices out here.”

A little younger than Mickey, Sandy’s a tough, no-bullshit South Side OG, loyal in ways most people aren’t and oddly charming despite the hard veneer. She draws Mickey into a hug and sensing his less-than-sunny mood, settles on a tepid pat of Ian’s shoulder.

“Should I be congratulating the newlyweds, or…?” Sandy’s voice trails off, confused by what reads like icy tension in the atmosphere.

“Nope. Both still on the market,” Mickey shoots back with a look that instantly shuts down any further discussion on the topic.

A breath hitches in Ian’s throat. Sandy knows Mickey wanted to marry him? Fuck! Of, course Sandy knows. Mickey _told_ her — why wouldn’t he? Obviously, he’d inform whoever’s been crashing in his bedroom this whole time whether he plans to move back in or shack up with his new husband. _Shit,_ if Ian didn’t already feel like the world’s biggest scumbag, he certainly does now.

“Ian!” Lip hollers from behind the wheel. “Can we go, please?” So caught up in the myriad distractions, Ian’s completely forgotten about his brother patiently waiting in the car. “I’m operating on like four hours’ sleep here, and I still have to get back to work after I drop you off.”

He lowers his voice when Ian steps closer to the driver’s side window. “Also, probably not the best idea to get involved in whatever _this_ is, right now.” He motions with a nod to Paolo and Mickey.

Yeah, like hell.

Ever since running into Mickey outside of Beckman that morning, Ian’s been in agony waiting to get him alone so they can finally hash things out. The whole wedding fiasco and subsequent breakup is ridiculous, as far as Ian is concerned, plus now he has to chase this Paolo fucker back into whatever hole he crawled out of. Anonymously turning in a murder weapon — to what, impress Mickey? And then, a blatant titty grab in front of Ian — to assert dominance over the man? Like Mickey owes him something for helping put Terry away? Yeah, no. Ian sends Lip on his way and promptly rejoins the group.

“Mickey, we need to talk.”

Mickey clicks his tongue, looking anywhere but at Ian. “Can’t. Gotta a meeting with my PO.”

“What, right now?!”

“Yes, right now!”

As their voices rise, Ian can’t help but notice the amused expressions on Sandy and Paolo’s faces. By this point, both are leaning against his parked BMW, smoking cigarettes and enjoying the show.

Ian’s embarrassing the shit out of Mickey in mixed company but what else is new? His headache, now taking a turn for the excruciating, only adds to the agony and all he wants is to ditch the lot of them, get his stupid parole appointment over with and fall into a dead sleep for the rest of the week.

“No lunch then, Mick?” Paolo offers, trying and failing not to smirk as he drags on his cigarette. “Some real food after eight months of ramen pizza?”

“Raincheck,” Mickey grumbles, running a hand down his face. “Better yet, go. Take Sandy. I could use the house to my fucking self for a bit.”

Mickey narrows his eyes and glares at Ian, implying that the order to stay away extends to him as well. He only hopes the damn message is received, as he nods hasty goodbyes and slams the door hard on his way into the house.

“You treating?” Sandy asks Paolo once Mickey’s gone.

Paolo shrugging is all the affirmation Sandy gets, which is apparently all that she needs, because moments later, she’s swinging the passenger door open and plopping down into the front seat.

“How ’bout you, Red?” Paolo slips his sunglasses back on and reaches for the car’s door handle. “Need a lift somewhere?”

Ian assesses situation. As he sees it, following Mickey into the house right now would only make things worse, and of course, do nothing to neutralize the new and very looming threat that is Paolo. This guy, all smugness and rock-hard abs, obviously has a rapport with Mickey, so he must know that he and Ian are together — current relationship-status hiccup notwithstanding. So, what’s his deal? Is Paolo interested in Mickey? How big a problem is he gonna create here, and for that matter, what the fuck’s he even doing in Chicago?

Ian needs answers, which is why despite not being in the best headspace to make sound decisions, he climbs into the backseat of Paolo’s car.

“What I wouldn’t give for a club sandwich and a cold lemonade, right about now,” he says, leaning back with a sigh.

Sandy scrunches up her face. “Don’t you have to meet with your PO, too?”

“Not ’til later this afternoon.”

Paolo concedes with a tip of his head and starts the engine. As the car purrs to life and pulls away from the curb, he gives Ian a sidelong glance. Amused by the ballsy confidence of accepting a non-invitation to join them for lunch, he thinks with a smirk, this may even turn out to be fun.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay, so I need to know,” Ian asks in between mouthfuls of fish taco, “how exactly do you know Mickey?”

“Hmm…” Paolo murmurs, casually slinging an arm over the back of his chair. “How does anyone know anyone, really?”

Ian stops chewing and fixes him with a stare before reaching for his water glass.

“We lived together.”

“What?!” Ian sputters, dribbling water down the front of his shirt.

“Relax. Just roommates. Well, no. Technically, he lived in the guest house. Does that count?”

Just twenty minutes into their lunch and the redhead’s already grown exasperated by Paolo and his cheeky-monkey horseshit. He glances around, exhales a frustrated breath and redirects his attention to the food set in front of him. Ian’s ravenous and focusing on the task of eating is mainly what keeps him from lunging across the table and strangling Paolo with his bare hands.

Along with Sandy, the three of them are seated on the outdoor terrace of a swanky hotel lounge surrounded by panoramic views of the city. After making it a point to order every item off the fucking bar menu and flirt with their ditzy, lovestruck waitress, Paolo leans back in his chair, nursing a vodka on the rocks as he watches Ian smugly over the rim of his glass. He tosses a pack of cigarettes onto the table, taps one out and lights up before continuing.

“The cellmates-slash-soulmates thing you guys had going — _that_ kind of cohabitational intimacy… uh-uh,” Paolo shakes his head and blows out a plume of smoke. “Why aren’t you two married again?”

Ian coughs, trying to recover his composure. “It’s complicated.”

“Always is.”

By this point, there are a few things Ian knows for certain. One, Paolo’s an asshole. Two, he somehow has _way_ too much intel on his and Mickey’s personal shit. Earlier, Paolo went on and on about the many underrated benefits of mayonnaise outside of its use as a sandwich spread — _very_ likely a dig at their sexual misadventures in prison. And, if that wasn’t enough, the obscure brand of cigarettes they’d been smoking while at Beckman happens to be the _exact_ same kind Paolo just flung onto the table. Other than to _fuck_ with him, Ian’s at a complete loss as to what his agenda might be.

“Enjoying the fries, Sandra?” Paolo shifts his attention to the woman beside him as he flicks ash off the end of his cigarette.

“Like no one ever has,” she responds with a wry smile.

“So, I guess you and Mickey just found each other on Mexican Craigslist, then?” Ian presses on, eager to resume the conversation.

In the next moment, a server comes by to bus their table and Ian sighs with rising impatience as every water glass is refilled, used plate gets cleared away and stupid crumb is whisked into a tiny dustpan. A babbling infant a few tables down fusses in his car seat, and beyond that, banter among a large group dissolves into peals of hooting laughter. The space fills with grating, buzzing sounds and a din that only adds to Ian’s foul mood. 

“Segundamano,” Paolo chimes in, snapping Ian out of his fog.

“Huh?”

“Mexican Craigslist. Or the equivalent. But better. We didn’t though.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Meet that way,” Paolo squints at Ian, as if stumped by the redhead’s confusion.

“How did you meet, then?”

“Mmm… work, mainly. When you’re married to your career, though,” he postures with a heavy sigh, “who can keep track of personal versus professional?”

Ian shuts his eyes and rubs his face in exasperation. So, Paolo really _is_ an operative with the Sinaloa cartel? Well, that would only make sense if he and Mickey were hanging by their necks right now from a bridge. The likelier scenario is that Paolo’s _implying_ a cartel affiliation just to rattle Ian, right? — since that’s pretty much all the evasive prick’s been doing since he blew into Ian’s life little more than an hour ago. And, _fuck,_ Ian was getting no closer to unraveling any of these ridiculous head games.

“Fine. So, what’s your story? Why are you in Chicago?”

“World-class attractions. Charming locals.” At that, Paolo playfully elbows Sandy and by way of response, she clinks her beer against his glass and smiles. _Ugh, Jesus_. Ian has to fight back an eye roll at the rapport developing between these two. Being South Side and all, he’d taken Sandy for a readymade ally, making this chummy display a disappointment to say the least.

“So, nothing to do with Terry getting put away, then?” Ian asks, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

“The name sounds familiar,” Paolo says pretending to wrack his brain, then snaps his fingers as if hit with a revelation. “Wait. Mickey’s dad, right?”

“Shame about your uncle,” he gazes at Sandy, biting his lower lip. “But realistically, how long could a bona fide piece of shit like that escape the long arm of American justice?”

“Mmm…” Sandy hums with complete indifference, taking a sip from her a beer and gesturing to a plate of sliders. “You gonna finish those?”

“All yours, Doll,” he inches the food closer to her and nods to Ian. “You too, Red. Help yourself.”

“Look, I know, okay?” Ian lowers his voice and glances around cautiously, in case anyone might be listening. “I know about the paperweight.”

“Paperweight? Paperweight…”

“Mickey told me!” he hisses through clenched teeth, head on the verge of exploding.

“Did he?”

Paolo inhales a deep breath and straightens up in his chair. The shift in his manner from snarky and overconfident to cold and detached is startlingly quick, as he levels Ian with a hard stare. Ian swallows, but in no way backs down, his own desperate need for clarity proving far more intense right now than any of Paolo’s bullshit scare tactics. 

“Did Mickey also happen to tell you about the call he made when he found out his conviction was being overturned? Hoping somebody with connections on the parole board could get his boyfriend out of the clink, too? Like actual _months_ before serving out his mandatory minimum.”

The party, if one can call it that, stops abruptly, as what had begun as verbal ping-pong between the men suddenly takes an unexpected turn. It catches Sandy off-guard too and she sets down the food she’s been nibbling to watch with rapt attention as Paolo presses on.

“Ever shed a single hair on that pretty red head of yours in a prison melee?” he enquires, taking a swig of his vodka. “How ’bout the bottomless commissary funds? Shit just magically replenish itself on the first of every month or does Ian Gallagher have a trust fund no one knows about?”

He drags deeply on his cigarette, raking his eyes up and down Ian’s stunned face. “What’s my story? It’s the one that ends with you. Here. Instead of in your housing unit, on a beautiful day like this. Feasting on crab cakes and not KIND bars, which last I checked, also don’t grow on trees.”

Ian is left speechless and possibly even more flummoxed by the situation than before. Paolo’s not some prickly stalker-type from Mickey’s past and all the taunting definitely hasn’t been of Ian’s imagining. He’s why Ian got paroled _and_ at Mickey’s request, not to mention the reason Terry’s facing a life sentence?!

Paolo can see by the look on Ian’s face that he may have just shorted the man’s circuits, and before he can even stammer out a word in response, Paolo decides to ease up on him and explain.

“Look,” he says clearing his throat and continuing in a decidedly softer manner. “Mickey’s a friend. That’s why I did all this. That’s the only reason. At one time, maybe we could’ve been something more. I don’t know. Seemed like we were having fun, but…”

“But what?” Ian asks meekly, his heart thundering in his chest.

“But, you know…” Paolo swirls his drink around, making the ice cubes gently clink in the glass. “Ian Gallagher had to go and blow up a van.”

He shrugs, a lopsided smile spreading across his face. “The rest, as they say, is history. Been watching out for him, which of course, also means watching out for _you_ ever since. You’re welcome.”

Paolo checks the time on his phone before draining the last of his vodka, getting up and chucking his spent cigarette into the empty glass. “Look, I gotta run. Stay if you want. Order whatever.”

Sandy looks completely taken aback. “You serious?”

“I shit you not. Charge it to room 1402.”

Paolo hustles past their table, then turns back to deliver a final thought to Ian, before heading out. “He chose you, Gingersnap. When he got himself thrown in the joint. Now get him back,” he adds with a tip of his head, “if you think you can.”

Not entirely certain if the last comment is meant as an insult or a challenge, Ian grits his teeth and exchanges a tense look with Sandy once Paolo’s gone. Neither speak for a few moments until Sandy finally cuts through the silence with a deep sigh. “Well, that was… riveting.”

“Yeah,” Ian agrees, his head still reeling. His gaze sweeps up and over the Chicago skyline, eyes squinting against the midday sunlight, then back to the half-eaten food on their table, when it dawns on him that he’s lost his appetite.

“I’m gonna head out too,” he tells Sandy dejectedly, squaring his shoulders and rising to his feet. “You coming?”

“Pfft. Maybe _you’re_ used to having an open tab on the El Toro family dime,” she says dryly, motioning to their waitress for another beer, “but, it’s a new experience for me and I’d still like to see the dessert menu.”

Sandy lifts a fork to her mouth, but stops short of biting when she spots the puzzled expression on Ian’s face. “You have no idea who you were just breaking bread with, do you?” she asks, though it comes out more like a statement of fact than a question. “Classic.”

The gears start to spin in Ian’s head, but with an achingly slow processing speed. Sandy nods patiently in echo of Ian’s steadily growing realizations, until he finally seems on the verge of an epiphany that pulls it altogether.

“You’re telling me Paolo works for the Gulf Cartel?”

“Mmm… more like, he’s the son of the guy who runs it.”

And then, it suddenly hits Ian like a ton of bricks. Paolo _is_ with the cartel, alright. The _rival_ cartel. Mickey betrayed his own crime family, but _also_ managed to befriend their most powerful enemy before turning himself in. That’s _how_ Mickey had been able to pull enough sway to keep them both safe and provided for at Beckman. _Fuck._ All this time, Ian never really bothered asking questions and enjoyed whatever perks came from Mickey’s connections on the outside. He hadn’t given it much thought and obviously could never have guessed that the wellspring of all that “Milkovich magic” would come in the form of Paolo. Obnoxious Playboy, International Man of Fucking Mystery and heir to the second biggest syndicate in the Mexican drug trade.

_____

“Sparky Gallagher!”

Ian looks up from his seat in the waiting area of the parole office, not sure how his day could get any worse — then of course, he meets Paula Bitterman and voila, mystery solved. After lunch at the hotel, Ian takes the L to his first PO check-in appointment and finds he’s been assigned to an odious piece of work whose got all her parolees involved in some kind of insurance scam or other.

“Now, you were an EMT before you were Jesus, right?” she asks, not waiting for an answer and hands him an oversized work shirt belonging to some other poor schlep named Sparky formerly on her crew. As part of his work release, Ian’s gonna have to do shady paramedic shit or else Paula will ensure a failed piss test gets him sent right back to jail.

He sighs and glances around in the futile hope of catching Mickey here, but realistically, Ian doesn’t even know if they’ve been assigned to the same district parole office. He reads through paperwork on his way home that explains the conditions of his release, which will include mandatory mental wellness checks and a nightly 10pm curfew for the next two years. He’s also been issued a cellphone.

Walking up the rickety steps of the Gallagher house feels all at once familiar, melancholic and surreal — a feeling compounded by the welcome-home party that’s in full swing just beyond the front door. He meets Lip’s girlfriend Tami for the first time, gets to hold his newborn nephew Freddie and hangs out with his younger siblings and niece, who’s grown up a lot in the time he was gone. There’s even a cake for him, lit up not with a candle but a tiny burning minivan, because who could resist the chance to fuck with Ian one last time today? But, this jab he doesn’t mind so much. Not at all, really.

It’s great seeing everyone but there is something missing, obviously. And, _fuck_ , nothing feels right without Mickey around. It doesn’t help that the surprise party, all streamers and colorful balloons, is an echo of the one Mickey threw for him at Beckman, not to mention the exact moment when everything between them went completely to shit.

“Hey,” Ian’s younger sister Debbie approaches him in the kitchen as he’s grabbing a refill of soda.

“Hey, Debs,” he says, bringing her in closer for a hug. It’s a little quieter in here making it easier for them to talk.

“Look, before I forget, I wanted to give you your share of the money Fiona left us.” She hands him an envelope of cash, explaining that he’s lucky, considering the rest of the Gallaghers got screwed out of their share because of some debit card nonsense she’d tried earlier.

“This is amazing,” he says, and after the day he’s had, genuinely means it. He thanks her with another hug, then stashes the money in his room and waits for the party to die down. Once everyone’s cleared out, he borrows Debbie’s laptop and takes it downstairs into the darkness and quiet of the kitchen.

He does a basic Google search, clicks around and finds Paolo — more internet-famous than he’d expected — photo-documented over the years from teenage party monster to grownup society hedonist. Ian learns that his mom’s American, he attended school in Europe and now splits his time between New York, LA and his family’s 300-year-old estate home in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico. Overall, the press has been kind to Paolo, probably because King Shit runs his family’s _legit_ businesses including a hospitality group; not surprisingly, the hotel where Paolo’s staying is one of their properties.

Ian groans and massage his temples, feeling very much ready to call it quits on the cyber-stalking when he notices an image of Paolo in a stately room overlooking an interior courtyard. He hesitates before clicking, not sure whether his stress-addled brain can handle any more, but curiosity gets the better of him and in the next moment, he’s ogling Paolo’s house on an interior design blog. The place is huge, all terra cotta walls and grand stone archways covered in climbing ivy, colorful tiles and heavily carved antique furniture.

 _This is it_ , Ian thinks to himself, as he stares, open-mouthed and stunned, at the image of a guesthouse, connected to the main house by an open courtyard with a swimming pool. This is where Mickey lived, and Ian can’t — he cannot, for the life of him — process how this is possible. There has to be some kinda mistake because how on earth did Mickey find himself in _these_ surroundings making the decision to sacrifice his freedom to be with Ian? To trade _this_ idyllic paradise for a cinderblock hovel where you couldn’t so much as take a shit in private. This was just downright inconceivable. 

Ian’s completely lost in thought which is why he nearly jumps out of his skin when the kitchen light suddenly flicks on and Tami comes bursting through the back door carrying Freddie. He’s also completely forgotten that she and Lip along with the baby live in an RV parked in the driveway.

“Oh shit!” she exclaims, holding a hand to her chest at the discovery of an unfamiliar Gallagher seated at the kitchen table. “Sorry! I just came in to warm up Freddie’s bottle.”

Ian silently shuts the laptop, lets out a relieved breath and asks Tami if she needs help. She waves Ian off at first then reconsiders, seeing the earnest expression on his face. “I mean, sure, if you don’t mind.” Tami shifts Freddie in her arms, then gently hands him to Ian, who draws the baby in close, bending forward to inhale his warm, sweet scent.

“You’re a natural, huh?”

Tami smiles at him as she busies herself at the counter, washing out bottles and preparing the warmer. Once she’s tested a drop of heated milk on her wrist, she holds the bottle out to Ian with a nod of encouragement, prompting him to feed the baby.

“So, how’s it going? Your first day out and all,” she takes a seat across from him at the table, running a hand idly through her hair.

“Honestly, some of it’s been great.” Ian gestures toward the burp cloth draped over Tami’s shoulder, which she hands to him so he can wipe milk collecting at the corner of Freddie’s mouth. “Some of it, not so much.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Not really one to burden someone he just met with his personal problems, Ian shakes his head, eyes cast at the tiny wriggling bundle in his arms. She sniffs and slumps forward a bit, and though he could just be imagining things, it seems like Tami might be the one looking for a sympathetic ear.

“How ’bout you? All good with, you know…?” Ian nods in the general direction of the mobile home outside, to which Tami flashes a rueful smile.

And, well, it doesn’t take long before they’re chatting like old friends and Ian’s gotten the whole rundown of Lip and Tami’s relationship woes, some of which are petty but most of which are remarkably significant. It’s almost embarrassing to admit, she says, but during her pregnancy they never once discussed lifegoals or bothered getting on the same page about anything, particularly where they would live or even if they planned to raise Freddie as a couple or as co-parents.

“Wow,” Ian furrows his brow and smiles gently at her. “Guess I shouldn’t be so down about my own fucked-up relationship then, huh?”

They laugh because it’s said in jest, but Tami raises her eyebrows and spreads her hands, a silent invitation for Ian to bare his soul if he thinks it’ll help.

And it actually does feel good to talk like this, to know that he isn’t alone in feeling conflicted and uncertain about the future of things. Ian sets down the bottle, carefully lifts his nephew by the armpits, and slings him over his shoulder, tapping and smoothing circles over his back, getting him to burb.

Then, as concisely as he can manage, Ian sums up his and Mickey’s decade-long melodrama, up to and including their recent breakup and how Paolo factors in. Tami listens as she cleans up and takes Freddie back from Ian for a diaper change. It all sounds like something out of a movie, and there are times when Tami’s face crumples at the sorrowful moments and she claps a hand over her mouth in reaction to the most beautiful.

“So now,” Ian says opening the laptop, clicking on a shirtless image of Paolo and spinning it around so that Tami can see, “I’ve got this asshole to contend with and absolutely no way to compete.”

“I highly doubt that,” she counters, though Ian appears so crestfallen right now, there’s probably no pep talk she can give that will convince him otherwise.

“I’m obviously no relationship expert,” Tami says, lightly bouncing Freddie in her arms. “But from everything you told me, it sounds like Mickey wants to feel like he matters, like it’s all been _for_ something, you know?”

Ian nods in understanding, though still completely at a loss as to how he can possibly make things right, given the circumstances.

“I haven’t met a Gallagher yet who wasn’t highly skilled in the art of self-sabotage,” she confesses, a pained smile on her lips. “Figure that part out and I’m betting the rest won’t be nearly so hard.”

Ian sighs. Feeling more bone-tired than he has in a long time, he powers down the laptop, kisses Freddie good night and heads upstairs. Too worn out even to cry, Ian surrenders himself to the numbing balm of a dead sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> For anyone interested, this was my vision for Paolo's house.
> 
> This was my vision for Paolo — according to FaceApp! LOL.


	4. Chapter 4

Getting up extra early the next day, his internal clock apparently still set to Beckman Correctional time, Ian takes his morning meds, gets dressed in the too-big EMT uniform and heads out quietly without stirring anyone awake. Due at the ambulance station in little over an hour, Ian thinks he has just enough time to see Mickey beforehand and finally clear the air between them.

He walks to the Milkovich house, a path he’s taken dozens of times before, the familiarity of which comes rushing to him in quick, disjointed flashbacks. As he approaches the house, heart thudding miserably in his chest, he thinks about how so many of his life experiences, both terrifying and bizarrely joyful, have taken place under its roof. More amazing still is how big a role Terry plays in it all — the dread when he’s around versus the peace that comes from knowing the lowlife’s behind bars creates an almost palpable energy shift.

“What?!”

Ian knocks on the door until Sandy finally appears, one eye squinted shut and looking monumentally annoyed.

“Mornin’ sunshine. Mickey here?”

“No idea,” she wanders into the house and calls back groggily over her shoulder.

After doing a cursory check of the first floor and resigning himself to the fact that Mickey’s gone, Ian throws his hands up and sighs.

“The fuck. Where is he?”

“Work, probably? I dunno.” Sandy grabs two mugs from the kitchen and fills them with coffee that Mickey likely brewed before he left.

“Have a seat if you can find one,” she says, kicking away random clothing and crushed beer cans littered on the floor. “I live with fucking pigs if you can’t tell.”

The state of the living room isn’t all that different from how Ian remembers it, but when he looks around, it’s not squalor but all the great memories that he sees. The weirdly domestic stuff — the grocery runs, late-night movie binges, the babysitting. His chest swells reminiscing about his and Mickey’s ghetto-marriage and the improvised little family they’d managed to build here.

“Ugh!” Sandy sweeps away random takeout boxes to make room for their mugs on the coffee table and in so doing, drags her hand through an oil slick.

“Can’t _wait_ to fuck off and get my own place,” she grumbles, wiping her hand on a nearby rag.

Yeah, Ian can relate. But still. This house.

He blows into the coffee mug as he sips, pleading with Sandy for info on Mickey’s whereabouts but she won’t budge. It’s nothing personal, she tells him, but there’s no way she’s about to get roped into their saga or betray her cousin’s trust for that matter. Ian rolls his eyes at her but refuses to give up.

“What about the Crown Prince of Mehico? He blow through here at all?”

“Ian —”

“Fine. Could you at least give Mickey my number? And tell him to text me so we can just talk.”

“That I can do,” she concedes, stifling a yawn and reaching for her phone so they can add each other as contacts.

Before heading out, Ian flashes Sandy one last doleful, puppy-eyed look. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me _where_ he’s working but could you just tell me what kind of job it is?”

She glares at him from the doorway, clicks her tongue and finally relents.

“Mall cop.”

A slow smile spreads across Ian’s face at the mental image. “Mickey in a uniform, huh?”

“No dorkier than your own, Gallagher,” Sandy says through a smirk, then shuts the door behind him.

_____

Though first-responder is a far cry from his actual job description, Ian spends the day cruising the slums of Chicago in an ambulance, along with his boss Shelly and another parolee named Yolanda. They fake billable procedures on random vagrants who, for their troubles, score a fistful of opiates before being freed back into the wild. It’s a complete shit show and a scam right outta Frank Gallagher’s playbook; in fact, Ian half-expects to see him laid out on their rig’s gurney at any moment.

Once his shift ends, Ian heads home and tries to keep himself occupied with mundane stuff around the house. He makes spaghetti, helps Lip snake the RV’s toilet, which Tami had apparently clogged with too many baby wipes, and reads Franny a story before tucking her into bed. All the while, he glances at his phone more times than he can count, trying very hard not to lose his shit over Mickey’s radio silence.

The next few days go very much the same way, the only break in the routine being a wellness check at the free clinic with a shrink who seems as interested in Ian’s emotional state as the redhead is in quantum mechanics.

She sends Ian off with a clean bill of mental health and no adjustments to his meds. Which is just as well, he thinks, when later on, he’s at the center of a family meeting to discuss strategies on how he can win Mickey back. Ian wouldn’t want his senses dulled for this particular brand of Gallagher horseshit.

“I know! You can buy him a promise ring,” Debbie offers, pulling up a chair and sitting beside Ian at the kitchen table.

Maybe it’s because Debbie’s currently romancing one, Tami points out, but a gesture like that would probably only impress a teenage girl.

That’s when Carl pipes in with some tactical brilliance of his own, suggesting that Ian wait for Paolo outside of his hotel, jump him, then drag him bloodied and beaten to Mickey’s as a show of old-fashioned gallantry.

This time, it’s Liam who has to explain how the idiocy of such a plan hits on multiple levels. For one, it would land Ian back in jail for assault and, likelier still, at the top of the Gulf Cartel’s hit list. Plus, Mickey’s not a simpleton and thinking he’d be so easily wooed by Ian doing little more than punching a motherfucker in the face is actually kind of absurd.

“Why are we even discussing this?” Ian demands, shoving a hand against the edge of the table in frustration.

“’Cause you’ve been mopey as fuck for days now,” Lip says leaning back against the counter. “It’s painful to watch and we’d collectively like to put an end to it.”

“Yeah, well. Sorry for your pain.” Ian rises to his feet and marches up to his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He collapses on his bed and sighs. Still finding no new message alerts on his phone, Ian rattles off his latest nonsensical text to Sandy.

 _Can you believe this weather,_ Ian types, to which she responds minutes later with a middle-finger emoji. Well, her phone’s definitely on. Clearly, she’s got the right number programmed in there for him. What the actual fuck is delaying Mickey from texting him, then? Oh, right. Ian groans as his traitorous brain supplies a pornographic mental image of what the holdup might be.

 _Fuck,_ one more day of this and Ian’s pretty sure he’s gonna start trolling every mall in Chicago ’til he finds Mickey, then pay a guitar soloist to serenade him with an ’80s power ballad right in the middle of the food court. Whether totally genius or as dumb as Debbie and Carl’s ideas — he isn’t sure which — Ian resigns himself to yet another wretched night alone in his bedroom.

_____

“Be right with ya, Sparky!”

Ian’s back at the parole office anxiously glancing around, but just as before sees no sign of Mickey. That is, until his eye settles on a whiteboard hanging above the desk of a PO whose nameplate says “Larry Seaver.” On it is a timetable with parolee names written beside days of the week and right there, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon is: “M. Milkovich.”

Ignoring whatever rational thoughts threaten to derail his next move, Ian fires off a text message to Shelly, requesting a shift change so he can free himself up for the following day.

_____

Ian barely sleeps that night and before long, finds himself nervously pacing the block outside the parole office, waiting as the minutes tick down to Mickey’s check-in appointment. Of course, he realizes probably a bit too late, that he’s got no plan or strategy for how to approach their impending reunion.

He sits down in the lobby’s empty waiting area, which has glass doors that face out onto the street. When he next looks up, Mickey’s sauntering in through one of them looking so good, it just about takes his breath away.

Their eyes meet and Mickey goes completely still. Clearing his throat to break the awkward silence, he glances down at the floor and then back up at Ian.

“You here to see your PO?”

“Nope,” Ian smiles playfully, his eyes bright as he stares back at Mickey.

“So, just stalking me, then?”

“Little bit, maybe.”

For a second, it feels old times and Ian’s suddenly so happy, he thinks he might burst. He rises to his feet and takes a trepidatious step forward, and then another until he’s close enough to breathe Mickey in, his scent so familiar and provocative to Ian that at times, it could literally make his body tremble. 

“I’ve missed you,” he says quietly. “You can’t imagine how much.”

Mickey grunts softly in acknowledgment, then scratches the back of his neck.

“Look, I—I know we need to talk, but now maybe isn’t the best time.”

Ian’s eyes dart over Mickey’s lips, his hair, his stubbled jawline. He steps even closer, the expression on Mickey’s face unreadable as Ian narrows the distance between them.

“I’ll wait,” Ian says, practically purring into Mickey’s ear. “Go. Have your appointment. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

All of a sudden, Ian’s distracted by movement on the street beyond the glass and he winces when he makes out Paolo, phone pressed to his ear and leaning against the hood of his car. Ian’s heart sinks at the realization that Paolo must’ve just dropped Mickey off and is now killing time until he can pick him up again after his meeting.

 _Fuck._ Something inside Ian snaps. As if possessed, he grabs Mickey by the arms and drags him away from the lobby doors until they’re tucked behind a partially obscured nook near a drinking fountain. Once out of sight, Ian slams their lips together hard.

So spurred on by jealousy and crippling heartache, Ian loses all sense of reason as he grinds against Mickey — determined to remind him of what they had, the risky, impulsive sexual encounters that fueled so much of their relationship.

“Ian—” Mickey cuts in, breaking free of the kiss and looking around, frantic that they’ll be caught by a PO any second. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing you don’t want,” he growls softly into Mickey’s hair, then before he can get a handle on himself, does the unthinkable and reaches down to fondle Mickey’s crotch.

Mickey shoves him off, stunned and outraged to discover that the redhead’s managed to completely undo his jeans.

“We’re in a federal fucking building,” he grits out furiously, getting right up in Ian’s face. “Do whatever the fuck you want, but I don’t need my god damn parole getting revoked because of you.”

Mickey tries pushing past him, but Ian blocks his path as the fevered rush of the situation, built on weeks of rising manic energy, finally comes to a head.

“I’m sorry!” Ian pleads, watching helplessly as Mickey sidesteps him and roughly grips the door handle.

“Mickey! Please. Fuck,” Ian stammers out, tears welling up and beginning to sting his eyes. “I’m—I’m desperate.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck you, I’m not.”

And with that parting shot, Mickey stomps through the office doors and disappears behind a maze of cubicles. Ian exhales and gazes outside through the glass at a seemingly oblivious Paolo, now seated behind the wheel of his car but still in mid phone conversation. With any luck, he and Mickey were at least spared the humiliation of a viewing party for the fiasco that just went down between them.

_____

“Mr. Milkovich, you seem upset.”

Larry Seaver leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers together. “Care to talk about it?”

Mickey’s seated at his PO’s desk, utterly wrecked over the way he just treated Ian. Between the pounding in his chest and the shaking in his hands, he barely registers anything Larry’s saying, since all he can think about is the pained expression on Ian’s face when he pushed him away.

Realistically, what did Mickey even expect from him? Ian’s extremes are so unpredictable and not always something he can control. Still, does it excuse the man from trying to pull his dick out in broad daylight in the middle of a government building? And, for that matter, the nerve of Ian, conceited shit that he is, thinking Mickey must be so cock-starved, he wouldn’t stand a chance against his sexual advances. Obviously, Mickey’s been just as torn up over their separation as the stupid ginger fuck has, but dammit, letting him off the hook _again_ after getting his heart stomped on — was that his solution to all this?

Larry regards Mickey with concern, then rummages through his desk drawer and pulls out a pair of sock puppets.

“I find that expressing ourselves through characters can often help us better manage our emotions,” he says, reaching out and extending one to Mickey. “Whaddya say?”

Mickey exhales audibly and glowers at Larry before gloving one of his hands in the stretchy cotton fabric. Seriously, _fuck_. How is this his life now?

_____

Mickey Milkovich can eat a bag of dicks as far as Ian is concerned. Fuck him. Fuck Paolo. Fuck the stupid BMW they rode in on and most of all, fuck the multinational drug empire they were no doubt planning to preside over together.

Ian’s in the alley behind the ambulance station having a smoke, replaying earlier events and resolving himself to the fact that he needs to move on. Never mind how gorgeous Mickey looked today or how great he smelled or how just basking in his presence for a minute felt more like home to Ian than anything he’s experienced in days.

To top it off, Ian’s paycheck’s being withheld because he pulled a real vic into the rig the other day and shot her up with epinephrine. She’d’ve died if he hadn’t and now Paula’s charging him for the cost of the fucking EpiPen. _Goddamnit!_ Ian kicks one of the garbage cans in the alley and grins at the satisfying crunch made by the dented metal. He drags deeply on his cigarette and kicks again. And again. Ramming his foot hard against the lid, the whole thing slumps over, a disfigured shell of its former shape.

Two more years under Paula’s thumb. Two more years living in the same neighborhood as Mickey, pretending the person he loves most in the world is just some old drinking buddy of his from The Alibi. Ian continues taking out his pent-up aggression on the alley’s overflowing trash bags.

So intent on pummeling the life out of something, Ian’s only vaguely aware of the construction site next door and that the bags are filled with its demolition materials. It’s also probably why at a crucial, and unfortunately irreversible, moment that his leg connects with a solid block of concrete. 

_____

“Yep, that’s a break alright, Sparky.” Paula surveys Ian’s bandaged leg, as if basing her assessment on medical training and not the confirmation he’d already gotten via x-ray at the ER.

“Parolees trying to go off the grid can get _pretty_ creative, but this?” She shakes her head in bewilderment. “Where’s the imagination?”

“I wasn’t trying to go off any grid,” Ian grits out, leaning bodily against one of his crutches. “It was an accident.”

Shelly pulls up a chair so that Ian can get off his feet, while she and Paula continue to assess his work-release situation. The injury isn’t too bad. He’ll need crutches at first, but can switch to a walking boot in a few weeks’ time. Still, Paula’s none too thrilled with the income loss this scenario creates.

“Tell you what,” Paula says, propping herself against the back of one of the station’s ambulances.

“You can apply for disability, which of course you’ll have to split with me, or…” she produces a document from the pocket of her blazer, “you can sign this here little waiver that says you were warned not to, but decided to work anyway, and I’ll letcha keep all your tidy earnings.”

Paula approaches Ian and pats him roughly on the back. “Think it over, Soldier.”

Sensing this might be a blessing in disguise and a way to extricate himself from the nightmare that is Paula, Ian considers it. Right about now, fucking off for a while and living off the cash Debbie gave him doesn’t seem like the world’s worst idea. Ian inhales deeply and snatches the paper from her hand.

_____

Mickey stares out at the placid movement of the water, trying hard to ignore the internal conflict bubbling just beneath his skin.

“I ever tell you ’bout the night I came out?” he asks Paolo, snickering at the memory. 

Paolo shakes his head.

“Did it at a bar in front of my dad’s gun club, my wife at the time. A harem of Russian hand-whores. Shit went sideways _real_ quick.”

They’re seated together on a rusty old fishing boat, up on dry dock supports, overlooking Chicago’s southern riverfront. It’s dark out and the slapping of water against the moorings along with an occasional foghorn in the distance are the only sounds to cut through the quiet of the breezy summer evening.

“Did it for Ian,” Mickey says, to which Paolo slides a blazing joint between his lips and smirks. “Didn’t seem to matter to him that I was about to get my ass handed to me by a roomful of Nazis.”

Paolo’s cheeks hollow as he takes several quick pulls and blows out a column of smoke. “Your point, Mikhailo?”

Mickey shrugs.

They sit like this for a while. Mickey’s so tired. Not just from the day’s bullshit with Ian, but in general. How many times were they going to repeat this cycle of Ian getting to do exactly what he wants no matter the toll it takes on him? Mickey glances over at the man beside him, uncharacteristically quiet as he rests his weight on his elbows, enjoying a mild high from the weed.

“Your smug ass probably saw this coming from a mile away, huh? The runaway bride shit.”

Paolo sniffs. “I won’t lie. A betting man might not’ve placed his chips on Red for that one.”

Mickey snorts and reaches for the spliff, but Paolo waves him off.

“Uh-uh. Parole, remember?”

Mickey lights up a cigarette instead and glances up at the night sky, struggling to make sense of the current situation he’s in and the tumult of emotions he’s feeling.

After a while, Paolo breaks the silence, looking at Mickey through hooded eyes and rising to his feet.

“So,” he says quietly, killing the roach and tossing it to the ground. “Why’d you bring me here? Hmm.”

Yeah, good question. Mickey inhales deeply, eyes sweeping over Paolo’s perfect face, the strong, angular lines of his body. They’re at the Canal Street marina, where just a few feet away, Ian once treated Mickey to one of the dirtiest, hardest poundings of his lifetime. Maybe he brought Paolo here to forget it ever happened. To snuff out the heat of one memory by replacing it with the searing burn of another.

He shudders as Paolo moves to stand in between his legs and slowly cards his fingers through Mickey’s dark hair. “Curfew’s comin’ up soon, Mick.” It comes out as a throaty whisper. “Can’t stay out here all night.”

Mickey trails a thumb over his lower lip, feeling absolutely gutted but horny as all fuck, and completely at sea on what to do next.

___

“Let me wrap your leg up so you can take a shower,” Liam says to Ian, having already taken the liberty of grabbing a few grocery bags from the kitchen.

“That’s unnecessary. Thank you.”

Finding it very difficult to care about anything, including personal hygiene, Ian lies listlessly on the couch with his bandaged leg propped up on the armrest.

Liam shrugs and passes the bags to Tami who’s drifted in through the back door carrying Freddie in her arms. Her mouth twists into a frown as she rakes her eyes over Ian’s unkempt hair, his days-old beard.

“Wanna take a ride over to the park with me and the baby?” she offers with an optimistic smile, to which Ian simply clicks his tongue and readjusts the pillow beneath his head.

After the unpleasantness at the parole office followed by Ian’s now overdramatized leg injury, the redhead has resigned himself to a sedentary life in the Gallagher living room.

At least before, he’d limited the moping to his own room, but now that showering was off the table, the BO situation was bordering on unbearable and finding creative ways to air out Ian’s funk was becoming a new family pastime.

“Hey, mail for you,” Debbie says fanning a manila envelope over Ian, sending the tang of him off the couch and downwind into the kitchen. She drops it into his lap before heading upstairs.

The letter’s from Beckman Correctional but addressed to Mikhailo Milkovich. Ian snorts. Of course, it is.

He snaps a picture and shoots it over to Sandy with a message telling her to come get her cousin’s shit. _Probably just junk_ , she responds curtly and instructs Ian to toss it out.

He’s just about to, when for a brief moment, he wonders why the prison would have Ian’s address on file for Mickey. Ian heaves an exasperated sigh. Now hyperaware of anything that might constitute a parole violation _,_ especially in regard to all things Mickey, he Googles whether or not it’s legal to open someone else’s discarded mail, before tearing it open and peering inside.

___

A few days later, Ian’s back at work slumped on the rig’s jump seat, his injured leg propped up on the bench.

“Just couldn’t stay away, huh, Gallagher?”

Ian flashes Yolanda a bored smile. “Reevaluated my cost of living index.”

“Mmm... whatever you say,” she murmurs, tapping her thumbs against the steering wheel as she pilots the ambulance through Chicago’s shittier neighborhoods which today, seem oddly bereft of hoodrats willing to play ball.

They go further north, past the South Loop into Lincoln Park and eventually through Boystown in search of the area’s seedy types and woozy day drinkers.

Through the vehicle’s small window, Ian can see the bar scene spilt out onto the sidewalks, a mostly male crowd huddled in small groups, smoking together and knocking back shots. Something in him stirs as the temptation to fuck his various pains away with a random hookup becomes the most the appealing idea he’s had in a while.

“You want off the rig here, Gallagher?” Yolanda offers, as if reading his mind. “I could clock out for you back at the station.”

It would be so easy, Ian thinks, as Yolanda brings the ambulance to a stop at a red light. Swap the stupid Sparky uniform for the change of clothing he keeps on the rig, hobble out of its rear doors and right into a back alley with a willing taker.

“Yeah, thanks. I wanna get dropped off,” he says clearing his throat. “I, uh—I’m definitely not gonna go back to the station.”

___

Ian can’t believe he’s fucking back here right now. His eyes dart around the lobby as he sighs heavily, resting an elbow on the reception counter and leaning his crutches against the wall.

“Could you please let the gentleman in room 1402 know that Ian Gallagher is here to see him?”

The woman behind the desk smiles at Ian and after placing a quick phone call, points him to the nearest elevator bank.

By the time Ian rides up and steps off the elevator, a barefoot Paolo is slouching against the open door to his room, puffing on a cigarette.

“Mickey’s not here,” he says to Ian casually before taking in the full, rundown sight of him. “Shit. What happened to you?” 

“Not important,” he replies dismissively. “I’m not here for Mickey. Came to talk to you.”

Paolo raises a curious eyebrow, but backs up further giving Ian a wide berth so he can get past the door and into his room. And, of course, _room_ only begins to loosely describe this pretentious display of bottomless wealth, which includes two stories, a grand piano and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river.

“So, I have a question for you,” Ian says, taking a seat and wincing as he rests his leg on a footstool.

“Just one?”

“Why?” he looks at the other man skeptically, “if I have more, you actually gonna answer any of them?”

Paolo sniffs and plops down on the couch opposite. “Try me.”

“Fine. Why’d you turn the murder weapon into the police? You must’ve known Mickey was planning on marrying me. What was in it for you?”

Paolo squints at him, confused by the question. “That’s _why_ I turned it in. What kinda chance would you two’ve had at a normal life together with his scumbag father still in the picture?”

“But you had nothing to gain from it.”

“I already told you,” Paolo says, tapping his cigarette into an ashtray and picking a loose tobacco leaf off his tongue. “Mickey’s a friend.”

“You did all that so that your ‘friend’ could have a shot at happiness with the guy he left you for?”

Ian crosses his arms and frowns at Paolo, making the other man’s lips quirk into an amused grin.

“You’ve never heard of such a thing? A person looking out for someone he cares about and not expecting anything in return.”

“Not fucking really.”

“That’s interesting,” Paolo says muttering around his cigarette, “because from where I’m sitting, that’s exactly what Mickey’s been doing for you for the past ten years.”

Ian sniffs and stares straight ahead blankly, subdued into silence by the realization that the truth doesn’t hurt any less just because you dislike the person telling it to you.

“Anything else?” Paolo asks after a while, slumping down to rest his head against the back of the couch.

Ian rubs a hand tiredly over his eyes. “Yeah. How long are you planning on staying in Chicago?”

“Open-ended.”

“If he chooses me, which at this point seems highly unlikely, is the cartel gonna stop protecting him?”

“Nope,” Paolo replies casually enough, explaining that protection isn’t conditional; it’s a reward, and a well-earned one at that, for Mickey’s loyalty to the organization.

Quiet falls over the two men as each sizes up the other over the smoke of Paolo’s cigarette. Ian isn’t sure what to make of any of it, other than he hates like fuck that Paolo’s the antihero of this whole story and not simply the villain.


	5. Chapter 5

Mickey glances at his phone then back up at the house number, wondering if he’s at the right place. There aren’t any safety hazard signs posted out front, but between all the broken clapboards and peeling paint, something definitely feels off. 

“Are you fucking kidding me with this?” he says after Sandy picks up on the second ring. “You’re actually thinking of renting this shithole.”

He hears her scoff on the other end of the line. “C’mon, Mick. It just needs some work.”

“The fuck you even need to move for? Not like there isn’t plenty of room for you at our house.”

He shakes his head with every creak the stairs make underfoot and grunts when he reaches the patio to peer into one of the filthy bay windows.

“Where are you anyway? Are you close? Not like I have all day to go house hunting with you.”

“It’s unlocked, Mickey. Jesus. Quit being such a fucking grump and just wait for me inside,” she says in an exasperated tone before quickly ending the call.

Mickey snorts, seeing that whatever little curb appeal the house has from the outside isn’t offset much by the interior. The living room, which at one time may have had some architectural charm, is badly water-stained with buckled floors and outdated wallpaper bubbling at the seams.

It does have a pretty nice fireplace, he’ll admit, which he notices while pacing the room waiting for Sandy. Squinting at some of the random items set atop the mantle, he comes closer to inspect what look like two documents in simple glass frames and beside them, a sealed manila envelope.

The first is a GED certificate from the Illinois State Educational Board with his name on it. As he takes it in his hands, Mickey can sense rather than see or hear the presence of a tall ginger doofus behind him lingering in a hallway.

“You gonna stand there like a creep and watch me all day, Gallagher?”

He places the frame back on its shelf just as Ian leans out from behind a corner and flashes him a nervous smile.

“So, um, that arrived at my house the other day,” Ian says, pointing to the GED, “which got me to thinking. You’d obviously been studying and planning this for a while and… you gave Beckman my address because you figured we’d be living together by now.”

Mickey sniffs and looks down at his feet.

“I guess I never realized how focused you were the whole time. On us. On the future. I’m sorry, Mickey. I’m sorry for not seeing or appreciating it before.”

As his eyes sweep over to the next document, Mickey can feel his throat tighten when he realizes that it’s his and Ian’s framed marriage certificate.

“I signed the license, Mickey. I mean, _literally_ later that week. I signed it and gave it to the Pastor to file for us. You just—you wouldn’t talk to me and I—I couldn’t just blurt it out and tell you ’cause it’s not the sorta thing that—”

“So, we’re married?” Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up, a mirror of his voice which hitches just an octave higher than normal.

“Yeah,” Ian admits quietly. “We have been this whole time.”

Ian darts a nervous glance at the brunette to gauge his reaction, but finds that his face doesn’t betray much, then swallows hard as he watches him lift up the envelope, tear it open and slide out the document inside.

“This is a custody agreement,” Mickey says more to himself than to Ian, his eyes blinking in disbelief as he scans the paper in his hands.

“Mmhmm…”

“You found Svetlana. You tracked her down.”

Ian shrugs. “Wasn’t hard.” He nervously shuffles his feet as Mickey continues examining the letter. “It says we can have Yevgeny every other school break and for half the summers. You know, as a start. Then we can see how things go.” 

Moving cautiously out from the corner he’s been standing behind, Ian edges closer to Mickey.

“We’re uncles, right? But, you know, also dads. A family.” Ian smiles coyly, motioning to the crumbling space around them. “And we’ve got two bedrooms, so, just think of the sleepovers we can have here.”

“ _You_ rented this house.” Mickey can feel his face burning as he stares at the redhead, wondering how on earth he managed all of this. He sets the paper back down on the mantle.

“Yeah, I mean Lip knows the guy who owns it. So, I got it for dirt cheap, but we’re also gonna have to renovate it ourselves. Well, _you’re_ gonna have to,” he adds, directing Mickey’s gaze to his leg, which is now clad in a walking boot. “I’ll be sitting down nearby supervising.”

Mickey has an almost visceral reaction to seeing Ian injured, which secretly thrills Ian to no end. Still, he’s quick to dismiss it and return their focus to the more pressing matters between them.

“Look, I—I’m never gonna be able to compete with Paolo, okay? He’s got money and looks and a brain that fuckin’ functions right and you’d probably have a great life with him and… shit, you probably _should_ choose Paolo, now that I think about it.”

“Is that what you want?” Mickey asks, a tinge of amusement in his voice.

“No.”

Ian reaches out and takes him gently by the wrists. “What I want is to go ring shopping with you. Mostly ’cause you have freakishly small hands and I wouldn’t know where to begin with sizing.”

Mickey snorts, but doesn’t pull away.

“Also, I wanna stop into a hardware store and get some mouse traps, because this place is fucking disgusting. And _maybe_ hit Urgent Care for a tetanus shot.”

Mickey rolls his eyes but there’s no pretending how much his heart’s melted in the just the few minutes he’s been standing here with Ian.

“This is me, Mickey. This is everything I can offer. I’ve got some money Fiona left me that we can use to fix up the place and we’ve both got jobs. If this isn’t what you want, then I’ll understand and I’ll step aside. But if you’ll let me, I—I’d like to spend the rest of my life —”

Mickey cuts Ian off by wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and drawing him in for a kiss. Then to Ian’s surprise, he pulls his lips away and embraces him instead; they hug deeply, pressing in close as each sooths the other through the litany of deep sighs and shuddering breaths that bubble up between them.

Mickey runs his fingers through Ian’s hair, rubbing his scalp in calming strokes while Ian buries his face in his neck, squeezing his eyes shut trying not to break down and lose it completely.

“I love you, Mickey,” Ian murmurs into the fabric of the other’s man’s jacket.

“I know,” Mickey sighs and tenderly strokes his face against Ian’s, feeling of the scratch of light stubble on his cheek. “I love you too.”

After they pull apart, Ian walks Mickey backward into one of the bedrooms. There isn’t much to the raw space, but he’s moved in a few items from the Gallagher house including his bed, a nightstand and a small lamp that bathes the room in a dim light. Ruined stucco walls and windows shrouded by dark curtains add to the gritty atmosphere.

Mickey looks around, still having trouble taking it all in but doesn’t question it. He wriggles out of his jacket and kicks off his shoes. Before tearing the rest of his clothes off, he slows down the frantic pace of the moment to kneel down and unstrap the boot from Ian’s still-healing leg. It’s a move that absolutely disarms Ian, as they settle together onto the mattress.

“Did you miss me?”

Mickey shuts his eyes, touches their foreheads together. “You know I did,” he says quietly, before laying an open-mouth kiss on Ian’s lips.

And, _fuck_ , there’s no denying that after the weeks spent apart, being together like this feels like a shot of lifesaving pain relief to the both of them. They both shudder as they continue to kiss, their tongues in a hot tangle as each claws roughly at the other’s hair, presses his body hard and flush against the one opposite.

Although usually too impatient for foreplay, Mickey for the moment, seems intent on taking his time. As if every sloppy kiss, playful bite and slow, affectionate stroke of Ian’s skin is spurred on by a fevered need reclaim him.

He trails his mouth over Ian’s chin, the column of his throat and back up again to lick along his ear. Ian’s head falls forward as he groans at the sensations and drags blunted nails over Mickey’s thighs, then higher to squeeze the firm muscle of his ass cheeks.

Mickey wants Ian so badly right now, it fucking hurts, and in the next moment, he’s rocking up to straddle him. Instinctively, Ian grabs a bottle of lube from the nightstand’s drawer and tosses it casually onto the mattress.

“Came prepared?” Mickey teases, uncapping the bottle and squeezing the liquid into his palm.

“Like a fucking boy scout,” Ian murmurs back, his fingers digging into Mickey’s hips.

After reaching back to stretch himself open a bit, Mickey works his slicked-up hand in firm strokes over Ian’s cock. Ian sits up, sucks and softly bites Mickey everywhere, indulging in the familiar taste of him, smooths his hands down Mickey’s back, reveling in the feel of his skin.

Now teetering on the edge, Mickey sinks down onto Ian without giving himself a moment of adjustment and begins rocking forward.

“Jesus, fuck.” The stretch is painful and but good and soon enough, he’s losing himself to the mind-blowing intensity of it.

Through hooded eyes, he watches Ian tremble beneath him as he rides him slowly, then gradually picks up the pace.

“Good?” Mickey’s voice is little more than a broken whisper, his hands, both in a white-knuckled grip, twist roughly into the sheets.

“ _Fuck._ So good, Mick. Always.”

Choking back a sob, Ian comes hard, writhing beneath Mickey and seconds later, Mickey follows, spilling onto Ian’s stomach as the shockwaves of pleasure course through his body.

They ride their orgasms out together slowly, both gasping for air. After a while, when Mickey feels Ian relax a bit, he shifts around until Ian’s curled up snugly against him on the bed.

Ian shuts his eyes, presses his head to Mickey’s chest. The soothing thrum of his heartbeat is just starting to lull Ian into the first restful sleep he’s experienced in weeks, when Mickey’s suddenly wriggling out from under him and climbing off the mattress.

What follows are the awful sounds of rusty faucet handles twisting in the bathroom’s sink, Mickey’s obscenity-filled reaction to it and the tortured groan of a toilet flush — all three, clear indications that the commode is in as crappy a condition as the rest of the place.

Like a man possessed, Mickey begins padding around the house in only his underwear and sneakers, opening creaking closet doors, grunting at the kitchen’s infestation problem and stepping out back to inspect the overgrown yard and driveway. To this, Ian sighs, buries himself under the covers.

“Hey,” Mickey makes his way back into the bedroom and ruffles Ian’s hair. “We gotta go.”

“What? Where?”

“Whaddya mean, ‘where?’ The hardware store.”

Flicking his finger against a section of broken drywall, Mickey demonstrates how easily it crumbles on contact and Ian watches bleary-eyed as a small chunk of it comes crashing to the ground.

“You see this shit?” he frowns, pulling the rest of his clothes on and shrugging into his jacket.

“We need _all_ new sheetrock, man. That fucking bowl’s gotta get plunged, the knobs aren’t working right and don’t even get my shit started about whatever’s living under these floors.”

Ian props himself up on his elbows and looks at Mickey like he’s nuts. “You wanna go now?”

“Jesus Christ, you think this home renovation stuff just magically happens? You gotta plan shit.”

Ian shuts his eyes and throws his head back with a groan, before shuffling out of bed and getting dressed. Mickey kneels down to reboot his leg in the Velcro brace, then grabs their housekeys from the nightstand.

All the while, he continues working himself into a lather about the various structural nightmares lurking all around this money-pit, from the roof leaks to the wood rot in every corner. They need to redo the wiring and from the looks of the mold situation, Ian better hope Yev, Franny and anyone else on his playschool jamboree guestlist doesn’t have asthma.

Yeah, okay. Ian _could_ take the opportunity to remind Mickey of the sorry-ass condition of the Milkovich house, not to mention the state of his bunk in their prison cell, but keeps quiet. That Mickey has the nerve to be so fucking persnickety all of a sudden is laughable, but he isn’t about to argue the point. They can save that bullshit and banter for another day. For now, Ian chooses to nod his head, keep the peace and agree to pretty much whatever. He smiles to himself once they step out onto the porch and closes the door quietly behind his husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to [Luluxa](https://luluxa.tumblr.com/) for the amazing fan art.
> 
> Also, please check out the next work, which is a prequel called [Before The Bullshit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27599299/chapters/67518424), that explores how Mickey and Paolo came to be friends. I’d love it if you guys would give it a read. Thank you for all the support!
> 
> Let’s talk all things Gallavich: https://mzshko.tumblr.com/


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